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Class_R 7- 

Book • AU5" 
Copyright _TL 

COPYRIGHT 


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4 


4 































SIMON JOHNSON, THE SAILOR, TELLING THE BOYS ALL 
SORTS OF WONDROUS STORIES (PAGE 186 ) 










TEN BOYS 


WHO LIVED ON THE ROAD FROM 
LONG AGO TO NOW 


BY 

JANE ANDREWS 

AUTHOR OF “SEVEN LITTLE SISTERS,” “GEOGRAPHICAL 
PLAYS OF UNITED STATES,” ETC. 


NE W EDITION 



GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 
ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO 


■ 





24 - 2 14-ie 





. I 



COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY 

LEE & SHEPARD 

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY 

EMILY R. ANDREWS 

COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY 

GINN AND COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
424.8 


* .. 

• * 


• 

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(Eftc athenaeum 

GINN AND COMPANY • PRO¬ 
PRIETORS^ BOSTON • U.S.A. 


©Cl A 800830 









TO MY NEPHEW 


WILLIAM WARE ALLEN 
























* 



















« 













. 








PREFACE 

In preparing this little book my purpose has 
been threefold. 

First, to show my boy readers that the boys of 
long ago are not to be looked upon as strangers, 
but were just as much boys as themselves. 

Second, in this age of self-complacency, to ex¬ 
hibit, for their contemplation and imitation, some 
of those manly virtues that stern necessity bred 
in her children. 

Third, to awaken by my simple stories an inter¬ 
est in the lives and deeds of our ancestors, that 
shall stimulate the young reader to a study of those 
peoples from whom he has descended, and to whom 
he owes a debt of gratitude for the inheritance 
they have handed down to him. 

As it has been my intention to trace our own 
race from its Aryan source to its present type, 
I have not turned aside to consider other races, 

vii 


perhaps not less interesting, with the single excep¬ 
tion of the incidental introduction of the Hebrews 
in connection with the Persians. 

It is scarcely possible for me to make a list of 
all the authorities I have consulted in preparing 
this little book ; but I wish to say that without 
the assistance of the valuable work by Eugene 
Viollet Le Due on the “ Habitations of Man in 
all Ages,” I could not have written the Aryan 
chapter. 

Jane Andrews. 


Newburyport 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Road to Long Ago . i 

II. The Story of Kablu. 6 

III. The Story of Darius.22 

IV. The Story of Cleon.45 

V. The Story of Horatius. 79 

VI. The Story of Wulf.115 

VII. The Story of Gilbert.137 

VIII. The Story of Roger.171 

IX. The Story of Ezekiel Fuller .... 193 

X. The Story of Jonathan Dawson . . . . 210 

XI. The Story of Frank Wilson.233 

VOCABULARY.247 


ix 















TEN BOYS 


WHO LIVED ON THE ROAD FROM 
LONG AGO TO NOW 

CHAPTER I 

THE ROAD TO LONG AGO 

Is there anything pleasanter than going back 
to the time when your fathers and mothers were 
children, and hearing all about how they lived, and 
what they did, and what stories their fathers and 
mothers used to tell them ? 

How you would like to take a journey to the old 
house where your grandfather lived when he was a 
boy, and spend a day among the old rooms, from 
attic to cellar, and in the garden and barn and yard ; 
to walk through the streets of the town (if he lived 
in a town), or through the woods and fields of the 
country (if his home was there); see the brook 


2 


The Road from Long Ago to Now 

where he used to fish, and the pond where he used 
to skate, or swim, or row his boat! And then, 
when you had lived his childhood all over with 
him for a few days, wouldn’t it be a fine thing to 
go on to your great-grandfather’s old home, and do 
the same thing there, and then to your great-great¬ 
grandfather’s ? 

But you will stop me and say: “ That isn’t pos¬ 
sible. The house isn’t standing now in which my 
great-great-grandfather lived.” Perhaps he didn’t 
even live in this country ; and it is possible that 
no one has ever told you where he did live, and you 
couldn’t find your way to his old home, even if it 
were still standing. So your journey back to long 
ago would have to end just where it was growing 
most curious and interesting. 

Now I have been making a journey very much 
like this, and I want to tell you about it; or rather, 
I am going to let the boys I met on the way tell 
you about it, for they knew more than I did, and 
indeed I got all my information from them. 

I will just tell you first where the road lies, and 
then I will let the boys speak for themselves. In 


3 


The Road to Long Ago 

this year, 1885, journeys can be very quickly made. 
We can go to England in a week, and to Calcutta 
in thirty-five days or less. But as my journey was 
to Long Ago as well as to Far Away, it was not 
quick, but slow, and I shall have to give you a 
strange list of way stations that will hardly com¬ 
pare with that of any railroad in the world. 

Here it is : — 

From Now to the old Revolutionary Days. 

From the Revolution to the time of the Puritans, both in 
England and America. 

From Puritans to the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 

From Queen Elizabeth to the Age of Chivalry. 

From the Age of Chivalry to the Early Saxons. 

From Saxons to Romans. 

From Romans to Greeks. 

From Greeks to Persians. 

From Persians to Hindus and Aryans. 

If we could count up the time from station to 
station along our way, we should find that we had 
needed between three and four thousand years to 
make our journey to Long Ago. 

We have stopped at ten stations on the way, and 
at each one there lived a boy with a story to tell. 


4 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

There was Jonathan Dawson, the Yankee boy, 
who told us about New England ways of living one 
hundred and twenty-five years ago; and Ezekiel 
Fuller, the Puritan lad, who had lived through per¬ 
secutions and troubles in England, and had come 
at last to begin a new life in a new land ; and 
Roger, who longed to sail the Spanish main; and 
Gilbert, the page, who would one day become a 
knight; and Wulf, who came with the fierce Saxon 
bands to conquer Britain; and little Horatius, 
whose home was on the Palatine Hill in Rome ; 
and Cleon, who told me wonderful tales of the 
Greek games and the old heroes; and Darius, 
whose brother was in the Persian army, and who 
had seen the great king Cyrus with his own eyes; 
and, last of all, Kablu, who, when a little child, 
came down with a great troop of his people from 
the high mountain land to the fertile plain of 
Hindustan, where the great river Indus waters 
all the broad valley, and the people live in ease 
and happiness because the sun-god has blessed 
their land. 

And now we have gone back, far back, and long, 


The Road to Long Ago 


5 


long ago, until we can no longer find the path, and 
no friendly child stands at the roadside to welcome 
us or point out our way. 

We have gone as far as the oldest of our great- 
great-grandfathers can take us; and it is away 
back there, in the land of Long Ago, that we will 
first stop to listen to the story of Kablu, the Aryan 
boy, who came down to the plains of the Indus. 



CHAPTER II 

THE STORY OF KABLU, THE ARYAN BOY, WHO 
CAME DOWN TO THE PLAINS OF THE INDUS 

^ Man is he who thinks " 

Are you ready to take a long journey, first 
across the Atlantic to Europe, then across Europe, 
through Italy, and Greece, and Turkey, past the 
Black Sea, and into Persia ? Look at your map 
and see where you are going, for this is a true 
story, and you will like to know where Kablu really 
lived. \\ e have passed the Persian boundary and 
are in Afghanistan, and now we must climb the 
6 








7 


The Story of Kablu 

steep slopes of the Hindu Kush Mountains, and 
in a sheltered nook we shall find a house. It is 
built of logs laid one upon another, and the chinks 
are filled with moss and clay. It leans against a 
great rock, which forms, as you see, one whole side 
of the house. The roof slopes from the rock down 
to the top of the front door (the only door indeed), 
which faces the sunrise. 

Here lived Kablu, far away in distance, and far 
away in time, too, for it was four thousand years, or 
more, ago. 

It is very early in the morning; you can still see 
a few stars shining in the gray light of dawn. 
Kablu is waked by his father, and he knows he 
must not linger a moment, for the first duty of an 
Aryan is to offer a prayer to the great god of 
light and fire, who will soon shed warmth and 
beauty over the whole mountain land. He never 
fails to rise and bless them, and certainly the least 
they can do is to rise to receive him and offer 
thanks to him. 

So in the soft morning light you can see the 
whole family standing around a broad, flat stone, 


8 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

in front of their house, on which are laid ready 
materials for a fire. 

Kablu’s two sisters stand beside their father. 
He rubs dry sticks rapidly together, and, just as 
the sun rises, a light flame springs up. The little 
girls and their mother pour upon it the juice of the 
soma plant, and it burns brighter and brighter ; 
then they add butter, and the fire shines with a 
clear yellow light, while the father stands with the 
morning sunshine on his face and says, — 

“ O Agni! great benefactor, shine upon us to¬ 
day; gladden our hearts to do thy will! ” 

This is Kablu’s church, his Sunday, his every¬ 
day, his prayer, his Bible, his minister. He has 
no other, and, if his father should die, it would be 
his right and duty to kindle every morning the 
sacred fire, and worship before the great sun-god. 

And now the sun shines upon this family while 
they eat their breakfast of cakes, made from 
crushed grain and baked in the ashes, eaten with 
curds and the flesh of the mountain goat. 

Breakfast over, the mother combs out wool for 
her spinning and weaving, for the father has torn 



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io The Road from Long Ago to Now 

his tunic, and a new one must be made. The little 
girls will help her, but Kablu must go with his 
father. Can you guess what he is to do? 

Do you remember that butter was poured upon 
the sacred fire ? Doesn’t that tell you that there 
were cows to be looked after. And where did the 
mother get wool for spinning and weaving? Of 
course there were sheep and goats. And didn’t 
they have cakes for breakfast ? So somebody 
must have planted grain on the slopes of those 
high mountains. 

Now you know that Kablu is a farmer’s son, 
for although you might have woolen clothes with¬ 
out keeping sheep, and butter and cakes without 
getting them from your own cows and your own 
fields of grain, it is not so with these Aryas; they 
must do for themselves all that is done. 

In the field is a clumsy wooden plow, with not 
even an iron point to it, for in those days iron was 
unknown. 

Then what did they do for knives ? 

Oh, they had copper and bronze. Copper, you 
know, is found in the earth all ready to be cut out 


The Story of Kablu \ \ 

and used without being melted, but iron is so mixed 
with earth that it must be melted in a very hot fire 
to separate it; and although Kablu’s father had often 
found pieces of iron ore, he did not know what they 
were, and had not tried to do anything with them. 

When you know Kablu well, however, you will 
be sure that he will try some day, if his father does 
not before him, and the great gift of iron will 
become known. 

See what they are going to do to-day, after the 
cattle have been cared for and the grain ground 
between heavy stones (they have a mill, you see, 
even if it is a poor one). Why, the mother comes 
to say that her earthen jars are broken; so the 
father goes with Kablu to the clay bed, and shows 
the boy how to moisten and mold the clay, and 
shape jars, and cups, and pots, while the clay is 
soft and easily worked. 

Before night they have shaped ten of them, and 
now they will leave them to dry, and in a few days 
they will build a great fire in which they will bake 
them until they are hard and smooth, and capable 
of holding water. 


1 2 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

But before this baking day comes, — indeed, the 
very night after the jars are made, — something 
important happens in the mountain home of these 
Aryas. 

The sun set among great, dark, stormy-looking 
clouds; and as the father stood before the little 
altar, performing the sunset service, he said: “O 
Agni! great and beneficent spirit, shine still on thy 
children, though the veil of cloud tries to shut thee 
away from us ! ” 

Then they all went into the house, and drew 
together and fastened the mats that hung in the 
doorway, and, stretching themselves on their beds 
of sheep and goat skins, they were soon asleep. 

Do you know what a storm is among the moun¬ 
tains ? How wild it is ! How the thunder echoes 
among the peaks, and how the little streams swell 
into torrents and rush down the steep mountain 
sides! 

Well, they had not slept long before a great 
storm broke upon them. Awakening, they heard 
the thunder and they saw the keen flashes of 
lightning, — the glances of Agni piercing the 


The Story of Kablu 


13 


darkness, — and then they heard the rush of 
the rain, coming down like a mountain torrent. 

Through the cracks between the logs of the 
roof it poured into the house. The little Nema 
clung to her mother and cried. A blast of wind 
tore the mats from the doorway, and now they 
felt the force of the storm sweeping in upon them. 

“ What is that, father? ” cried Kablu, as through 
the darkness he listens to a great, rushing, rum¬ 
bling sound, heavy as thunder, but more lasting, 
and coming every instant nearer. 

The father listens a moment, then he answers: 
“It is the swollen brook, and it tears away stones 
in its course down the hillside." 

But he had hardly spoken, when a falling ava¬ 
lanche struck the house and tore away one side, 
leaving the rest tottering. 

If it had not been for the blessing of the morn¬ 
ing light that just then began to gleam faintly in 
the east, I think this whole family might have been 
killed by the logs falling upon them in the dark¬ 
ness. But the dawn had come, and with it help. 

In the shelter of the cattle-shed they find a dry 


14 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

spot where they can light the sacred fire, and then 
the father goes to the next settlement to see if his 
brothers have escaped the perils of the storm, and 
if they will come and help him. 

It would be bad enough for you or me to have 
our houses torn to pieces by a storm, but you 
know very well that there is timber ready in the 
lumber-yard, and tools in the carpenter’s shop, 
and men to be hired for money who know how to 
build it up again. But with Kablu’s family, how 
different! 

The timber is still in the form of living trees in 
the forest, and there is no axe of steel, or even of 
iron, with which to cut them down. 

They have a copper or bronze tool, aided, per¬ 
haps, by fire, but fire can’t do much with green, 
growing wood. 

No carpenters to be hired ? Certainly not; but 
the brothers will come and work for the one who 
is in need, knowing well that like help will be 
freely given to them in time of trouble. 

And while his father is gone, our little boy sits 
on the great rock against which the house was 


l 5 


The Story of Kablu 

built, and watches the sun driving the clouds 
before it away through the long valleys ; and he 
looks down upon the ruined house, and then he 
begins to think. 

It was only yesterday that he had said to 
his father, “ Tell me, father, what does man 
mean ? ” 

And his father had answered, “ Man means one 
who thinks. The cows, the sheep, and the dogs 
breathe, eat, sleep, and wake as we do, but when 
calamity overtakes them, they have no new way 
to meet it; but man, the thinker, can bring good 
out of disaster, wisdom out of misfortune, because 
he can think.” 

So, as I told you, Kablu sat on the great rock 
and began to think. “Wisdom out of misfortune; 
what does it mean ? Perhaps a new way to save 
ourselves from the like misfortune again.” But 
beyond this no new thought came to the child, 
and saying to himself, with a laugh, “I’m not a 
man yet,” he jumped from the rock and ran down 
to the clay bed to see if all the new jars had been 
broken or swept away by the storm. 


16 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

The clay bed was in a sheltered place. The 
jars stood safely as he had placed them yesterday. 
The lowest parts of the clay bed were flooded, 
but the higher part was just moist enough for 
working, and Kablu began to pat smooth cakes 
of it and shape them with his hands. 

Then he wondered whether his father would 
bake the jars to-morrow, or whether they must 
wait until the new house was finished; but he 
answered his own question when he remembered 
that after last night’s havoc only one jar remained 
for his mother to bring water in at breakfast-time. 
Yes, the baking of the jars must come first; it 
would not take long to prepare the fire, and he 
himself could tend it while his father and the 
others worked on the house. 

Now Kablu is beginning to be a man — a thinker 
— though he hardly knows it himself ; for, as he pats 
his little flat cakes of clay, the thought comes to 
him, “ The water floods the clay bed, it doesn’t run 
through it; and our jars, which are made of clay, 
hold water. If our roof was like them, we should 
never be troubled with the rain again.” 


The Story of Kablu 17 

“ But how could we make and bake a sheet of 
clay big enough for a roof ? ” and, as he thinks, he 
flattens out his cake and shapes it like a square tile. 

“This would do for a roof to a play-house,” 
he says, half aloud, “ I will slip it into the ashes 
to-morrow, and see how it comes out.” 

So, when the next day’s fire is kindled for the 
jars, Kablu’s tile is slipped in under them, and 
baked until it is dark brown and almost as hard 
as stone, and when he takes it out he carries it to 
his father, who is more of a thinker than he is. 
His father finishes the thought for him, saying: 
“ My boy, we will make many of these little 
squares of clay, and, putting them together, cover 
our roof and keep out the rain.” 

So, you see, Thought has brought wisdom out 
of misfortune. 

But you will want to hear about the new house. 
One of the brothers, as they worked slowly and 
laboriously cutting down the trees to build it, said: 
“ It would be easier to pile up stones than to cut 
down these trees, and stones would not be so 
easily washed away by a torrent; or, if a few did 


18 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

go, that would not be so bad as losing the whole 
side of your house.” 

So the lower part of the house was built of 
stone, and the logs laid on top, and when it was 
finished, enough tiles had been made to cover the 
roof ; and what a nice house it was ! 

Almost a pity, you will think, that it had been 
built so well, when you hear what happened the 
next year. 

It was a year of great trouble, for the sun-god 
hid his face; great snows and frosts came, and 
the winter was so long and the summer so short 
that the flocks could find no pasture. Kablu drove 
the sheep from one hillside to another, where the 
grass always used to be fresh and sweet, but every¬ 
where it was scanty and poor ; and the little lambs 
lay down and died by the roadside, and the boy 
could find no help for them. 

Then he said to his father, “What shall we 
do ? ” And the father answered, “ I will think.” 

It took the thought of many men to learn how 
to bring wisdom out of this misfortune, but they 
found the way at last. Before the time for the 


9 


The Story of Kablu 

autumn rains, down the long slope of the Hindu 
Kush Mountains, troops of men, women, and 
children, flocks of sheep, and herds of cattle, were 
making their way, slowly but steadily, to the 
plains of the great river Indus. 

Some had said: “Why do you go now, when 
the autumn rains are just coming to make every¬ 
thing green again ? ” 

But the wiser answered : “ The dutumn rains 
will bring relief for this one year. How do we 
know what the next will be ? Let us go where 
the great river, the Indus, will supply us always 
with water; where we, who are plowers, tillers 
of the ground, shall have soft, level fields instead 
of rough mountain sides, and where we and our 
children can make a new home.” 

But still others objected: “Why do you go 
down into the country of the wild Dasyus, your 
enemies, —men like beasts, who live in hollow trees 
and cannot plow, nor spin, nor make houses ? 
Who have no cows nor sheep, but are like sav¬ 
age creatures, speaking only by wild cries, and 
ready to tear us in pieces if we oppose them ? ” 


20 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

But again the wise men answered: “ Our God 
has decreed that we shall conquer the Dasyus. 
Agni will give their land to the Aryas, and the 
wild Dasyus shall serve them.” 

So Kablu, the Aryan boy, came down to the 
plains of the Indus. 

In the Aryan language, river was “ Sindhu,” 
and by this name the Aryas called it; and by 
and by the neighboring people called them “ Sind- 
hus,” or "Hindus,” meaning river men. But the 
ancient name, Aryas, was cherished, especially 
among the old people, and by the time our little 
Kablu grew to be a man, this name had grown to 
mean noble, or belonging to the old families. 

But we have nothing to do with Kablu as a 
man. When he came down from the mountains 
he was about twelve years old, only he didn’t 
count his twelve years as you would. If you had 
asked him his age, he would have told you that 
one hundred moons and half a hundred more had 
measured his life; for the very word moon means 
The Measurer, and the moon was to the Aryas in 
place of almanacs and calendars. It told not only 


The Story of Kablu 


21 


their ages, but their planting times and harvests, 
their festivals and the times of other important 
events. 

When they could say: “ Two thousand moons 
ago our fathers came down from their home 
among the mountains,” it happened that Kablu’s 
great-great-grandson was sitting by the river 
mourning for the loss of his little playmate, 
Darius, who had that day started on a long jour¬ 
ney with his father, mother, brothers and sisters, 
and a host of their friends. They had set their 
faces westward, and they traveled towards the 
setting sun until they reached the land we now 
call Persia. What they did there, and how they 
lived, I must leave you to learn from another 
Darius, the Persian boy, who was a great-grandson 
of this one who had journeyed away from the 
Indus towards the setting sun. 



CHAPTER III 

THE STORY OF DARIUS, THE PERSIAN BOY, WHO 
KNEW ABOUT ZOROASTER 

“ Truth , Courage, Obedience ” 

You know, when you come to the Z copy in 
your writing books, there is nothing to write but 
“ Zimmerman,” and “ Zoroaster.” 

What a strange word Zoroaster seems to you. 
If one of my boys looks up from his book to ask 
me what it means, I say: “ Oh, he was an ancient 
Persian, and he wrote the Zendavesta. You 
might have had Zendavesta for your copy.” 

But after I have told that, neither you nor I 
know much about him, do we ? And here is this 
boy, Darius, who has heard of Zoroaster as often 


22 



The Story of Darius 23 

as you have heard of George Washington, and 
who almost every day during his boyhood learns 
some of the words of this great teacher. 

Before I can introduce you to this Persian 
boy’s home, I must explain that at the time 
Kablu came down to the Indus it seemed as if all 
the mountain tribes were moved by one great 
impulse to leave their homes and journey west¬ 
ward, down the mountains. 

Down the mountains and into the plain poured 
the long line of travelers. For many moons you 
might have watched them coming, and you would 
say: “ The mountain land must have been full 
of men.” 

But you may readily believe that these thought¬ 
ful people knew better than to stay all together 
when they reached the plain. Southward to the 
Indus went Kablu with his father and many 
others ; but westward over the grand table-land 
of Iran went others. And some, still more enter¬ 
prising, young people and strong, longing for a 
sight of the great world, pushed still farther until 
they reached the shores of the Black Sea. 


24 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

“ What shall we do now ? ” said Deradetta, the 
leader of the band. 

“We will divide,” cried the young men. “Half 
of us will skirt the shores to the north, half to the 
south; so shall we find larger lands and make 
greater conquests.” 

So Deradetta led his band to the south, and Kal- 
anta to the north, but before they parted, Deradetta 
called them all together, and said: “ Perhaps we are 
parting forever. Do not let us forget the traditions 
of our fathers. Give us, O Agni, brave comrades, 
happy abundance, noble children, and great wealth.” 

Then, at the dawn of the next day, Kalanta and 
his party turned away to the northward, and Der¬ 
adetta turned southward; but perhaps, by and 
by, their great-great-grandchildren may find each 
other again. 

And we shall not be surprised to hear that 
when the family of Darius reached the land of 
Persia, they found people who had built towns and 
even cities, and the newcomers naturally feared 
that they might be enemies. 

As they approached the first village, a man in a 


25 


The Story of Darius 

long robe woven of wool, and with loose, flowing 
sleeves, came out to meet them. Pointing to the 
horses that the leaders rode, he said Aspa> their 
own name for horse; and then, noticing the sacred 
fire which they carried always with them, he bent 
his head reverently. 

“Do you also,” asked they, “serve the Father 
of Light and Life, and, if so, who has taught you 
to worship thus ?” 

And the man understood their words, if not 
perfectly, at least well enough to comprehend 
their meaning, and he answered,— 

“Our fathers, many, many moons ago, came 
down from the distant mountains, bringing with 
them the sacred fire. They taught us the wor¬ 
ship of the Father of Light and Life.” 

And the travelers, overjoyed, replied, — 

“ Our fathers, too, came from the mountain 
land, and we are your brothers : we will live to¬ 
gether in peace in this new land.” 

Now I must tell you that the earliest settlers 
had given themselves the name of Medes, and the 
newcomers were called Persians. 


26 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

And I leave you to imagine how they lived 
together many years. At first the Medes were 
rulers and the Persians subjects ; but, by and by, 
a great and wise Persian named Cyrus became 
king, and it was at that time that Darius, the boy 
of our story, lived. 

And Darius had for his friend Zadok, a dark¬ 
eyed Hebrew boy whom he found by the river¬ 
side one day and took for his companion, until 
they were forever parted by —- but I must not tell 
that now. I must begin at the beginning, that 
you may understand what Darius was doing when 
he found Zadok. 

I shall have to take you to the great city of 
Babylon, — a wonderful city, with high walls and 
gates, palaces and gardens and temples. There 
were golden shrines and images adorned with 
gems. There were tables and chairs with feet of 
gold and silver; and indeed I can hardly tell you 
how magnificent the city was, as it stood, like a 
great gorgeous jewel, on the plain. The broad 
river Euphrates flowed through it, and the date 
trees grew upon its borders, and wild pears and 


/ 


The Story of Darius 27 

peaches ripened in its sunny valley. Shouldn’t 
you like to live where peaches grow wild? But 
you will wonder what this city of Babylon had to 
do with Darius. 

Why, he went to live there with his father and 
mother, and many other Persian families, because 
his great king, Cyrus, had conquered Babylon and 
taken it for his own. 

And now I want you to wake very early, before 
dawn, and get up quickly, as Kablu did when he 
lived among the mountains, and come with Darius 
to an open field just outside the city gates. 

In the dim light you will see many other boys, 
all hastening towards the same place. Their 
dresses are of leather, — a sort of tunic and trou¬ 
sers ; they do not easily wear out, and the fashion 
never changes. 

Each boy carries a bow and a quiver of arrows, 
excepting the little boys of five or six years, who 
have only slings and stones. 

See, they are all together now in the field, 
ranged in ranks before an officer. This is their 
school. Do you want to know what they learn ? 


28 i The Road from Long Ago to Now 

jfou may look about in vain for a programme 
of I studies, for not one of them — scholars or even 
teachers — can write; but their programme is so 
simple that when once Darius tells it to us we 
cannot forget it. Here it is — 

To Shoot with the Bow. 

To Ride. 

To Speak the Truth. 

That was all. Shall we stay awhile and see 
how well the lessons are learned ? Here is the 
youngest class — little boys only five years old. 
I think we should teach the little fellows that it is 
wrong to throw stones ; but, see, they are stand¬ 
ing in a row, each with a smooth pebble in his 
sling, and one after another they throw as far and 
as straight as they can. Then, while they go for 
more stones, the next class has a lesson in shoot¬ 
ing with the bow and throwing the javelin. 

After the little boys have come back and prac¬ 
tised with their slings, and you have seen their 
running class, I want you to wait for the class to 
which Darius belongs. 


The Story of Darius 


29 


He has learned the use of the sling and the 
bow and the javelin ; and ever since he was seven 
years old he has been on horseback every day. 
But that is not enough ; he doesn’t know how to 
ride yet, — at least so thinks his master. 

The boys take their javelins and stand in a row ; 
a gate is opened, and horses, with loose bridles 
and flowing manes, gallop into the field. Each 
boy must spring upon the back of one of these 
galloping horses. Many the falls and many the 
failures, but success at last, and presently you see 
Darius coursing swiftly over the field, and one by 
one the others follow him. A target is fastened 
to the old oak there at the right. As they pass it 
at full gallop, each one throws his javelin at the 
mark, and day by day they practise until there are 
no failures ; sometimes with the javelin, sometimes 
with the bow and arrows, but always at full speed 
and with unerring aim. And do you notice that 
some of the arrow-heads are of iron, while others 
are of bronze? I told you it wouldn’t be long 
before these people would find out iron. 

After the riding is ended, see the boys again 


30 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

before their master. He stands in front of them 
with a quiet, reverent look on his face, and says, — 
" Listen to the teachings of Zoroaster. It is 
written in the holy Zendavesta, * There are two 
spirits, the Good and the Base. Choose one of 
these spirits in thought, in word, and deed. 

“‘Be good, not base. The good is holy, true; 
to be honored through truth, through holy deeds. 

“ ‘ You cannot serve both'" 

And the boys repeated after him,— 

“Be good, not base. The good is holy, true; 
to be honored through truth, through holy deeds. 
You cannot serve both.” 

Isn’t that a good lesson for them ? A good 
lesson for you and me too. 

After this the young children go to their homes, 
but Darius and others of his age are also to hunt 
to-day. The plains away to the north are the 
home of the antelopes, and the boys will ride 
miles and miles in pursuit of them. 

Did you notice that Darius didn’t have his 
breakfast before going to school, and he hasn’t 
had it yet? But that doesn’t trouble him. One 


The Story of Darius 31 

meal a day is all he ever thinks of taking, and if 
he is very much occupied with hunting, or has a 
long march to make, it is often one meal in two 
days instead of one. 

To-night the boys will sleep in the field, to be 
ready for an early start in the morning; and before 
the stars are dimmed by the first light of dawn 
you will find them at the ford of the river, pre¬ 
paring to cross. 

Their bows and arrows are at their backs, but 
their captain has given the order: “ Cross this 
stream without allowing your weapons to get wet.” 
And see how the boys have placed both bows and 
quivers on their heads ; stepped fearlessly into the 
water; taken each other’s hands in mid-stream, 
where the current is swiftest, to save themselves 
from being swept off their feet; and reached the 
opposite shore safely and well. 

To-day they are in a wild, woody place, far from 
the city, and the captain orders that they find food 
for themselves; for, if they would be Persian 
soldiers, they must learn to live on the enemy’s 
country if necessary. Thanks to the peaches, 


32 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

the wild pears and the acorns, they make a good 
dinner, or breakfast, whichever you choose to call 
it, and then this day’s lessons are over, and they 
may explore the fields as they please. 

And now, at last, we are coming to Zadok. 

Darius was straying along the river-bank when 
he saw a black-eyed boy, perhaps a year younger 
than himself, who turned and half hid himself 
among the bushes, when he saw the merry troop 
of Persian boys. 

“See the Hebrew boy,” cries one of the Persian 
lads. “He can neither ride nor shoot.” 

“ What of that ? ” says Darius. “ I know him. 
He can tell wonderful stories, and he knows about 
dreams and about wars too. They came from the 
west, these Hebrews, and perhaps he has seen the 
great salt sea. Let us bid him come and sit with 
us on the rocks, and tell us about the sea.” 

And Darius, who was a swift runner, sprang 
down the path, and, overtaking the black-eyed boy, 
said: “Come and tell us about the sea, and we 
will give you peaches and nuts.” * 

Now Zadok had no need to be afraid of the 


The Story of Darius 33 

Persian boys, for their great king Cyrus had been 
very kind to his people. He was a story-teller 
by nature; so he scrambled up the rocks beside 
Darius, and, sitting there with the afternoon sun 
shining upon his face, he told the Persian boys his 
story. 

“Tell us about the sea,” cried they. 

“ I have never seen it,” answered Zadok, “ but 
my grandfather used to live near it, and he tells 
me about the ships of Tyre that come with their 
great white sails and long oars, swiftly over the 
desert of waters; swifter than camels or horses, 
for it is the wind, the breath of the Lord, that 
drives them. They bring cedar-wood and gold, 
and purple cloth and scarlet. My grandfather 
came away from the sea when he was a boy like 
me, but he never forgets. And now we are going 
back, back to our old home. I shall see Jeru¬ 
salem, and I shall know it well, though I never 
saw it before.” 

“But why did your father come away?” 

“ You see this great city of Babylon, and the 
golden image of its god Bel ? The people of 


34 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Babylon were worshipers of idols, but our God 
is no graven image, He is the Most High, the 
Maker of heaven and earth.” 

“Yes,” said the Persian boys, “so is ours.” 

“ And do you have prophets to teach you ? ” 
asked Zadok with surprise. 

“No,” answered Darius, “it is the holy Zoro¬ 
aster, the golden star who sheds light on the way 
we must go.” 

“But tell us about the Babylonians.” 

“When my father was a boy,” continued Zadok, 
“ they came to this country, broke down the walls 
of the beautiful city, Jerusalem, entered the holy 
temple where we worship Jehovah, and carried 
away the gold and silver vessels from the altar. 
Then they took the people, men, women, and 
children, and carried them away captive. My 
father had not lived in Jerusalem, but in that 
time of danger all the country people crowded 
into the city, so he and all his family were marched 
away across the desert, leaving behind them only 
the ruins of their homes.” 

“ Why didn’t they fight ? ” cried the Persian boys. 


The Story of Darius 35 

“They did fight, but the Lord delivered them 
into the hands of the enemy.” 

“ Then this God of yours is not so strong as the 
golden image of Bel, nor as our God, who makes 
us conquerors,” said Darius. 

“ Yes He is,” protested Zadok ; “ ask my father ; 
he will tell you. He is King above all gods. He 
made us captives, and He promised to bring us 
safely again out of our captivity, and that is why 
He sent your king, Cyrus, to set us free from the 
people of Babylon.” 

The Persian boys nodded to each other. “ That 
is true,” they said, “for we all heard the proclama¬ 
tion: ‘Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia. The 
Lord God of heaven hath given me all the king¬ 
doms of the earth, and He hath charged me to 
build Him a house at Jerusalem. Who is there 
among you of all His people ? The Lord his God 
be with him, and let him go up and build it.’ ” 

But the sun is setting and the boys must go 
home. You know they have to be up very early 
in the morning. 

Do you think their mothers have been anxious 


36 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

about them ; that they have saved a good supper, 
or at least a bowl of bread and milk, for the tired 
child who has been away ever since yesterday 
evening ? 

No, indeed. Darius is twelve years old. He 
is supposed to be able to take care of himself, 
and his brother, who is fifteen, enters to-morrow 
the army of the king. 

The mothers take care of the little boys under 
five years of age, — that is all. 

Darius sees no more of Zadok for some months, 
for he leaves the great city and goes to the farm 
of his uncle. There he helps to take care of the 
flocks of pretty black sheep and goats, and learns 
to guide the plow, and is taught from the Zend- 
avesta that one of man’s chief duties is to till 
the soil which the Father of Life and Light has 
given to him, and to plant trees, that the fruitful 
earth may blossom and be glad. 

One morning, while he is at the farm, his 
uncle seems anxious and troubled. He looks 
often towards the southeast, and turns away only 
to cast a sorrowful eye upon his peach trees, just 


37 


The Story of Darius 

blossoming, and his apples and pears forming 
their tiny fruit while their snowy petals cover 
the ground. 

We might think that this Persian farmer ought 
to be very happy, looking over his promising fields 
and orchards. But no, the wind has been south¬ 
east for two days, and “Unless it changes before 
night,” he says mournfully to himself, “the locusts 
will be upon us. We can fight against men, but 
not against insects. Rather the whole Babylonian 
army than a swarm of locusts.” 

Before the morning star has set, the boys are 
roused from sleep by the shouts of the farm 
laborers as they run this way and that, trying to 
drive the swarm of locusts that darken the air 
in their flight. When they have passed, not a 
green leaf remains upon any tree, and it is useless 
to hope for a new crop this year. 

Now his uncle must drive the sheep and goats 
up into the hill country, looking for pasture; and 
Darius will go home to Babylon, taking his cousin 
Baryta with him. 

Baryta has never seen the great city, and as 


38 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

the two boys, dressed in their little leather suits, 
trudge along over the fields together, Darius be¬ 
gins to talk of the wonders he will show him. 

“You never saw the winged bulls, with their 
great bearded faces. I shouldn’t wonder if you 
would be afraid of them.” 

“Afraid; not I,” said Baryta. “Aren’t they 
made of stone ? Who cares for them ! I shouldn’t 
be afraid if they were alive. You never saw a 
Persian boy that was a coward.” 

“But perhaps they are gods,” suggested Da¬ 
rius, “like the golden Bel that stands within the 
gates.” 

“ And if they are, what then ? I should think 
we had learned from the Zendavesta that Ormuzd 
is the maker and ruler of all. I am not afraid of 
their gods that are only images. Who ever saw 
an image of Ormuzd ? Nobody could make one, 
he is so great.” 

“Yes, I know Ormuzd is the greatest, for 
haven’t we Persians conquered Babylon and all 
its gods ? I know a boy in Babylon ; his name is 
Rab-Mag, and he doesn’t dare go by the shrine 



A WINGED BULL OF BABYLON 

















































































































































40 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

of the golden Bel without bowing himself to the 
ground. He is afraid of the winged bulls and the 
horned lions ; but then, you see, they are his gods, 
not ours.” 

“ There is one good thing in our going back to 
Babylon just now. I think we shall be in time 
for Zadok’s people. That will be grand ; you will 
like that.” 

“ But what do you mean by Zadok’s people ? ” 
asked Baryta. 

“ Don’t you know the Hebrews ? Wasn’t there 
an old Hebrew man that lived near the farm ? 
Can’t you remember last year, when we first came 
here, how we used to see them sitting by the 
riverside and crying over their troubles, because 
they couldn’t go home to their own country? 
Well, Zadok is a Hebrew boy that I knew in 
Babylon. He lives close by the great brazen 
gate.” 

“ And what is he going to do that we shall like 
to see ? ” 

“Why, King Cyrus has set the Hebrews free, 
and they are going home to build up their own 


The Story of Darius 41 

city again. The king says their God is the same 
as ours, — the Maker of heaven and earth. Zadok 
says His name is Jehovah, and I know that His 
name is Ormuzd; but I suppose the king under¬ 
stands how they are the same. Now we are just 
in time to see them go. I think it is to-morrow 
that the caravan starts. If we can only get 
a place upon the city wall, we shall see it 
grandly.” 

And, full of the idea of being in time for the 
procession, the boys ran races with each other, 
until they were close up to the great brazen gates, 
which shone in the sunlight like gold. 

“ Hurrah ; here we are ! ” cried Darius. “ Look, 
Baryta, can you read ? See, the stone-cutters 
have been making a new inscription, and we 
might find out what it is if we could read.” 

But Baryta shook his head; reading had, as 
yet, formed no part of his education. He couldn’t 
read the inscription, and I don’t believe you could, 
either, if you had been there. It was only a 
strange collection of arrow-heads, or wedges, beau¬ 
tifully cut into the stone. We should find them 


42 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

now, if we should go to see, for that is a kind of 
writing that lasts. 

Early the next morning the whole city is astir. It 
is the festival of the new year ; not our first of Janu¬ 
ary, but the twenty-first of March, when the sun 
passes the equator, and begins to move northward. 

I don’t believe Darius had any New Year’s 
presents, and Christmas Day had passed like any 
common day; for this was long before the Chris¬ 
tian era, and there was no Christmas Day. But 
come out with Darius to the banks of the Eu¬ 
phrates early on this New Year’s morning, and 
see the silver altar placed on the highest hill, 
and the priests, in their pure white robes, stand¬ 
ing around it to feed the sacred flame with pieces 
of sandal-wood. The chief priest pours the juice 
of some plant upon the fire, and then, as the flame 
curls up, he casts fresh butter upon it. While it 
burns clear and bright, all the people join in a 
prayer or song asking blessings on their nation. 

No Persian ever thought it right to ask bless¬ 
ings for himself, but only what was good for all, 
and for him through the blessing of the whole. 


43 


The Story of Darius 

Do you remember the little altar among the 
Hindu Kush Mountains, where Kablu’s family 
worshiped without a priest ? 

Isn’t there something in this service to remind 
you of it ? These far-away Persians have brought 
the worship of the hills with them ; and Zoroaster 
(their golden star) has taught them that Ormuzd, 
the spirit of purity and light, whose temple is the 
earth and the heavens, needs neither image nor 
church for his worship. 

As the service ends, the prostrate Persians rise 
and lift their faces to the light, singing all to¬ 
gether : “ Purity and glory will grow and bloom 
forever for those who are pure and upright in 
their own hearts.” 

And now is the chance for you to see the king, 
in his purple robe and yellow shoes, with his fan- 
bearer and his parasol-bearer behind him, and the 
bearer of the royal footstool to stand ready beside 
the chariot the moment the beautiful black horses 
stop. 

The chariots are out upon the walls; two char¬ 
iots abreast on the top of the walls, and yet the 


44 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

boys have found room to squeeze themselves in, 
and see the grand procession start. Men, women, 
and children on horses, mules, and camels, bands 
of musicians and singers, and in their midst, car¬ 
ried aloft with all reverence, the vessels of gold 
and silver that belong to the Hebrew temple. 
Out through the brazen gates, under the waving 
banner of the Persian eagle they go; and, as 
they pass the chariot of Cyrus, there is a great 
and prolonged shout, “ Long live the king! ” 

The boys join in the shout, and indeed every¬ 
body joins. It is a great act of justice and kind¬ 
ness from one nation to another. They may well 
shout and be glad. 

“ Zadok, Zadok,” calls Darius, as he sees his 
friend below in the long procession. 

The little dark face is lifted, the eyes light up 
with a friendly smile, and then Zadok is gone. 

Just then the drum beats for the boys’ evening 
exercise or drill. Down from the wall in an 
instant, and away to the field outside the gates; 
for is not obedience the third of Persian virtues ? 

TRUTH, COURAGE, OBEDIENCE. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE STORY OF CLEON, THE GREEK BOY, WHO 
RAN AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES 

“ Ah, yet be mindful of your old renown , 

Your great forefathers' virtues and your own." 

We have reached the third station on our road 
from Long Ago. See, it is a beautiful country, 
with mountains and valleys, and the blue Medi¬ 
terranean surrounding it on all sides but the north. 
Lovely green islands border it like a fringe, and a 
deep blue gulf almost cuts it in two. 

Just south of the entrance to this gulf lies a 
Greek state called Elis,—a peaceful state, where 


45 






46 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

flocks feed, and grain is waving in the fields in 
these July days, and grapes are ripening in the 
sunshine. And nobody fears that some enemy 
will suddenly come by land or sea, to molest 
or destroy, for to all the people of Greece this 
is a sacred state and therefore safe from all 
harm. 

I want to show you a valley in Elis before I 
begin to tell about Cleon. 

It is almost shut in by mountains, and a river, 
the Alpheus, flows through it. Its hillsides are 
green and wooded, and its fields covered with 
grass and flowers. In these old days, long ago, 
a temple stood in this valley, guarded by a golden 
statue of Victory, and beneath the statue hung a 
shield of gold. 

Shall I let you pass between the long rows of 
pillars and look in at the great throne, and the 
gold and ivory statues of Zeus, the “ father of 
gods and men ” ? 

See how beautiful the throne is, — cedar-wood 
and ebony, and richly set with precious stones! 
But when we look at the mighty statue that sits 


The Story of Cleon 47 

upon it, we forget all the glory of the throne, and 
think only of the Olympian Zeus. 

Those old Greeks used to say : “ Not to have 
seen the Olympian Zeus was indeed a misfortune 
to any man.” The great sculptor, Phidias, had 
done his finest work when he made this statue. 
He made it as beautiful and as grand as he could, 
because he said always to himself while he worked : 
“ It is in honor of the mighty Zeus, the father of 
all the gods, and he will look with favor on my 
work if it is worthy.” So he carved the face, 
the chest, the arms and the feet of ivory; the 
hair and beard of solid gold; the eyes were pre¬ 
cious stones, and the robe was of gold with 
jeweled flowers. In one outstretched hand stood 
a golden figure of the Winged Victory; in the 
other was the mighty scepter. Forty feet high 
was this grand statue (as high as the house I live 
in). He sat there with a look sublime and inap¬ 
proachable, yet not stern nor angry. 

And this statue our little Cleon is really going 
to see with his own eyes. I wish we could see 
it with him, for to us also, to you and to me, it 


48 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

would be very grand, though we know that no 
image can represent God, the Father of us all. 
But the rows of pillars and the long lines of light 
and shadows that fall across the pavement, the 
costly throne, the gems and gold and ivory, the 
majestic figure and face, and the great golden 
Victory over the door, make us stand still with 
a solemn feeling and ask what it all means. 

Can you see it like a picture, and will you not 
forget it, while I take you away to Cleon and the 
others, who are hastening over the long roads in 
the bright summer weather, towards this very 
valley, to take part in the great Olympic games ? 

From the south came the Spartan youths, 
marching (they always march instead of walk¬ 
ing) over the rough road with their bare feet. 
A bit of black bread in their wallets, and water 
from a wayside spring, is food enough for the 
journey. Among them are four boys who trudge 
on silently behind their companions. It is not 
respectful for boys to speak in the presence of 
men. 

Will the boys get very tired on this long walk, 


49 


The Story of Cleon 

full sixty miles, I think? Or, if they do, will 
the men stop for them to rest or march slower 
for their sake ? Oh, no; they are used to such 
marches. If they can’t keep up they had best 
go back, for none but vigorous athletes are wanted 
at Olympia. Few comforts these boys have had 
in their lives, and no luxuries. For this last year 
they have been left to their own resources, living 
upon what they could find or steal. Their bed 
is of rushes that they gathered by the riverside, 
and last winter, when it was very cold, they added 
to it thistledown that they pulled in the fields. 

Watch for these boys; you will see them 
again. 

From Corinth and from Thebes they are com¬ 
ing, young men for the games, old men to look 
on and recall the days when they too were young. 
And the islands are sending their bravest and 
best, and the distant colonies fit out ships with 
two or three rows of long oars, and carry the 
colonists home for the great games. 

But we have chiefly to do with the travelers 
from Athens, among whom is Cleon. 


50 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

That you may know Cleon well, I must tell 
you what he has been doing for the past few 
years, and I can’t tell you that without intro¬ 
ducing to you his pedagogue. 

I sometimes wish the boys had pedagogues in 
these days. Perhaps you don’t know what a 
pedagogue was, and can’t tell whether you would 
like to have one or not. 

Look in the dictionary and you find the defi¬ 
nition, a teacher or schoolmaster; then you will 
say: “Why, yes indeed, I do have a pedagogue.” 

But if you look in the great unabridged diction¬ 
ary, you will see, just after the word “pedagogue ” 
and before the definition, two strange-looking 
words in Greek letters, and their meanings fol¬ 
lowing them, — “to lead," and “a child So 
you see that in Greece, where the word came 
from, a pedagogue was one who led a child. 

Every man in Athens who could afford it 
bought slaves. These slaves were the captives 
taken from other nations in war, and sold for 
greater or less prices according to their ability. 
A man or woman who could only cook might be 


5i 


The Story of Cleon 

bought for a mina of silver, while a learned man, 
who could oftentimes teach not only the children 
but the father himself, might cost a thousand 
drachmas. 

Among the family slaves was always a peda¬ 
gogue, who, as soon as the little boys of six left 
the care of their mothers and nurses, led them 
to school, and went with them to their games. 
They watched over them in every way, that they 
might form no bad habits, and that they might 
also notice and become interested in all that was 
best and most beautiful. 

They led them to school, and then left them 
with the schoolmaster. When they were old 
enough, they led them to the gymnasium, where 
there was always one room set apart for the boys. 
Here they were trained in racing, wrestling, and 
all manly games. 

But we shall understand it all better if we go 
to school with Cleon and see what he does 
there. 

The pedagogue leads him to school at sunrise. 
On Monday morning do you suppose ? Oh, no ; 


52 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

there were no Mondays and no weeks, — at least 
no weeks like ours. Three decades made a 
month. Some months had thirty days, and in 
those each decade was, as its name shows, ten 
days; but others had only twenty-nine days, and 
then the last decade had but nine; and as for the 
names of the days, they were only first, second, 
third, and so on. 

School began at sunrise and ended at sunset, 
but I hope the same set of boys did not stay all 
that time. 

Cleon is even earlier than usual this morning; 
for Glaucon — a boy two or three years older 
than himself — is still busy washing the benches 
with a great sponge, while Lysias grinds the ink 
for the parchment writing and waxes the tablets. 
These boys are too poor to pay a teacher, and 
yet they have a great love of learning, so they 
are working for the schoolmaster, who will pay 
them in teaching. 

Little Cleon is still in an elementary class, 
learning to read and to repeat poetry, but next 
year he will begin to write on a little waxed 


The Story of Cleon 53 

tablet with a pen called a stylus. It is made of 
ivory, pointed at one end and flattened at the 
other. He writes with the pointed end, and 
afterwards rubs out the letters and smooths over 
the wax with the other, and the tablet is all 
ready for a new lesson. 

He has a classmate named Atticus, who 
found it almost impossible to learn his letters, 
although in the way of mischief there was noth¬ 
ing Atticus couldn’t learn. So at last his father 
took him away from school and bought twenty- 
four little slaves of the same age as his son. 
These little fellows he named for the letters of 
the alphabet, — not A, B, C, but Alpha, Beta, 
etc., — and he hired a schoolmaster to teach the 
whole twenty-five together. And it wasn’t long 
before Atticus, who shouted to Gamma to catch 
the ball, or called Delta to run a race with him, 
had learned all the letters and begun to put them 
together to make words. 

Before Cleon began to go to school, and when 
he was still a very little boy, only five years old, 
he one day climbed up the steps that led to his 


54 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

mother’s bed. You must know that going up 
stairs to bed was exactly what they always had 
to do in Athens, for the bedsteads were so high 
as to need several steps to reach them. Well, 
he climbed up stairs onto his mother’s bed, and, 
wrapping his little chiton across his breast with 
one arm, held out the other as he had seen the 
orator do when his nurse led him past the marble 
porticoes, where the people were often gathered 
to hear some wise man speak. And then, in his 
baby-talk, he made a little speech, beginning, 
“ Citizens of Athens.” 

Though his father and mother did not appear 
to take special notice of this at the time, they 
afterwards said one to the other : “ Our boy will 
become an orator; we must see that he studies 
the works of the poets.” 

So, even before he can handle the stylus, he 
has begun to study the grand, heroic verses of 
Homer; not from a book, for I am sure you 
must know that there were no printed books in 
those days, and few written ones. His master 
taught him, being quite as careful that he should 


The Story of Cleon 


55 


stand gracefully, and hold his head erect, and 
his arms and hands at ease, as that he should 
understand the noble words and repeat them in 
a clear tone and with good expression. 

Sometimes it is a speech of the wise Nestor 
to the Greeks before Troy, — 

“O friends, be men: your generous breasts inflame 
With mutual honor and with mutual shame; 

Think of your hopes, your fortunes; all the care 
Your wives, your infants, and your parents share. 
Think of each loving father’s reverend head, 

Think of each ancestor with glory dead; 

Absent, by me they speak, by me they sue, 

They ask their safety and their fame from you.” 

Or with Ajax he makes a stand to defend the 
ships, and shouts,— 

“ O friends ! O heroes ! names forever dear, 

Once sons of Mars and thunder-bolts of war I 
Ah ! yet be mindful of your old renown, 

Your great forefathers’ virtues and your own. 

This spot is all we have to lose or keep, 

There stand the Trojans, and here rolls the deep.” 

Or he learns by heart the brave old tales, and 
grows to understand, — 

“Not hate, but glory, made those chiefs contend, 

And each brave foe was in his soul a friend.” 


56 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Inspired by such grand words the boys will 
grow up to do brave deeds in battle some day 
themselves. 

When they can read and write and count, and 
reckon by numbers a little, the lessons in music 
will begin. For although the law of Solon 
teaches only that every Athenian must learn to 
read and to swim, no less surely must every 
Athenian learn to sing and to play on the lute 
or cithara. For he must be able to sing the great 
paean when he goes into battle, to join in the 
sacred choruses in honor of the gods; and also, 
in time of peace, he must know how to play and 
sing for the pleasure of himself and his friends 
in company. 

But of course Cleon does something besides 
study. 

Don’t you want to go out with him to the sea¬ 
shore, three miles away, and skip shells (flat 
oyster shells), as we do stones, on the blue water 
of the Mediterranean ? And he can play leap¬ 
frog with the best of you. It is a Persian game, 
brought from that country years ago. To play 


57 


The Story of Cleon 

ball is a part of his education, for the body must 
be educated as well as the mind, and it makes 
one erect and agile to toss and catch and run. 

A year or two ago he used to drive hoop,— 
a lovely hoop with tinkling bells around the 
inside of it. Wouldn’t that be a good Christ¬ 
mas present for somebody ? Do you suppose it 
was a Christmas present to him ? 

No, there is no Christmas yet, any more than 
there was for Darius. He had the hoop on his 
birthday. He is too old for it now, but it is put 
away in case he should ever have a little brother. 

It is only within a year that Cleon has been 
training for the foot races. 

Perhaps you don’t see why every Athenian 
boy must be a swift runner; but when you re¬ 
member that war was then the chief occupation 
of the people, and that a Greek army ran into 
battle shouting a grand paean, you will realize 
that a soldier untrained in running was but half 
a soldier. 

Cleon has been doing his very best in the 
racing, for this year he is going for the first time 


58 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

to the great Olympic games. Three of his neigh¬ 
bors and friends go with him, and of course his 
pedagogue, Diogenes, who has trained him so 
well, goes with him also. He will take care of 
them all, and the boys must be sure to obey 
him ; for obedience is one of the duties of a good 
citizen, and good citizens they are all bound to 
become. 

You and I have reason to be particularly inter¬ 
ested in these Athenian boys, for Athens is a 
republic, the very first republic in the world, so 
far as we know. And all that you learn in becom¬ 
ing acquainted with Cleon will show you what 
was necessary in those old days to make boys 
into good citizens of a republic. 

And now, at last, we set out on the journey 
to Olympia. 

The dress of the boys is a simple chiton, a 
little garment of linen without sleeves. They 
have sandals on their feet, because this journey 
is long, and they will not unfit their feet for the 
race; but often and often they have walked miles 
and miles barefooted. They need no hats, for one 


The Story of Cleon 59 

of their earliest lessons was to stand with uncov¬ 
ered head in the hottest sunshine, as well as to 
endure the coldest weather without any clothes at 
all. So they walk with a light step, and find little 
trouble in keeping up with their older brothers, 
who are going to join in the wrestling matches 
and the other games. 

Eudexion, indeed, rides on horseback, wearing 
his white chlamys, purple-bordered and with four 
tasselled corners. But even that you would not 
think was much of a dress, for it is only an oblong 
strip of cloth with a button to fasten it together 
on the right shoulder, so as to leave the right 
arm bare, and free to use spear or bow. 

You will see by and by, however, that this 
very simple way of dressing is exceedingly con¬ 
venient to these Greeks. 

It is the Seventy-seventh Olympiad. You re¬ 
member that Kablu measured time by moons. 
Cleon measured by Olympiads. And what was 
an Olympiad ? Why, it was four years ; and it 
was counted from one celebration of the Olympic 
games to another. 


1 


60 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

If you asked Cleon at what time he began 
to go to school, he would have answered: “In 
the third year of the Seventy-fifth Olympiad.” 
Now count back, and you will find out how old 
he is. 

But we must go back to our journey. You 
and I should call such a journey a long, delight¬ 
ful picnic ; camping at night in a sheltering cave; 
bathing every day in some clear stream; feasting 
on wild figs and olives and almonds ; and stopping 
sometimes at a farmhouse for barley cakes and 
honey. 

We join in the morning song of the farmer’s 
boys, — 

“Come forth, beloved sun.” 

We watch the toiling oxen, yoked with a maple 
yoke, curved like a serpent winding round their 
necks; and we listen to the half-naked, happy- 
looking lad who trudges beside them, singing to 
himself: “He who toils is beloved by gods and 
men.” “Be industrious, for famine is the com¬ 
panion of the idle.” 

At noon we reach a hospitable farmhouse, 


The Story of Cleon 


61 


where the cook stands beside her fire, stirring a 
great pot of broth with a fig tree ladle to give it 
a fine flavor; and in fact we find bowls of it deli¬ 
cious and refreshing as a preparation for the after¬ 
noon’s march. You see we don’t travel on the 
Spartan plan. 

But we mustn’t stop too long on the road. 
Only notice, as we come nearer and nearer to 
the beautiful valley, what troops of people we 
meet, all on their way to the same place. Some 
have come down from the mountains, and among 
them is an old man who has come all the way 
from a distant mountain hamlet, and only to-day 
joined the company in which we meet him. 

“ Were you not afraid to travel so far alone ? ” 
he was asked. 

“ Oh, no,” he answered; “ I carry a laurel 
staff.” 

Though you and I don’t see how a laurel staff 
should protect him, Cleon knows that the sacred 
laurel is a safeguard from all evil, and he looks 
curiously and with a sort of awe at the old man’s 
staff. 


62 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

But while we talk, Cleon is already in the 
valley, and stands gazing, for the first time in 
his life, at the golden Victory. On the morrow 
morning he will pray to Zeus for victory, and 
then take his place among the foot racers. 

There couldn’t be a brighter morning than 
the next. How the sun shines on the golden 
statue and shield, and on the hundred bronze 
statues of Olympian victors that stand around 
the sacred place! 

Perhaps you can’t understand how games could 
be sacred. But I think there is a true meaning 
in thinking of it as Cleon had been taught to. 
The great god Zeus had given him a strong and 
beautiful body, and now he came to the temple of 
Zeus to show that he had used that body well, 
that he had trained it to feats of strength and 
skill, kept it sacred, not injured it by carelessness 
or ill treatment, but made the most of it all the 
time. 

All the boys who are to run are together on 
one side of the field. Cleon, who arrives very 
early, watches the others as they enter. He is 


The Story of Cleon 


63 


thinking whether they will be worthy opponents 
in the race. He is not afraid of any of the 
Athenian boys. He has beaten them all many 
times already. But here are boys from all parts 
of Greece, and good runners too. Still he has 
little fear until he sees a rugged, sunburned face 
under a shock of uncombed hair; keen eyes that 
look neither to the right nor to the left, and yet 
see everything; a light step, neither quick nor 
slow, but very sure, caring not for rough roads, 
wet or dry, but trained to march in the darkest 
night as steadily as by day. It is Aristodemus, 
the Spartan boy,—not a very pleasing object 
beside the Athenian boys, in their clean linen 
chitons, and fresh from their morning bath. 

Aristodemus has but one chiton a year, and 
he wears that until it is worn out. In summer 
he often goes without, in order that it may last 
through the winter; and this poor garment, I am 
sure, has never made the acquaintance of the 
washtub. This, however, is the boy — the one 
boy — that Cleon has reason to dread in the 


race. 


64 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

And now the day begins with a solemn sacri¬ 
fice to Zeus, the father of light. Ten bulls, their 
horns decked with oak wreaths, are led up to the 
altar and killed, and the priest prays. As the 
flame is kindled and curls up around the sacrifice, 
the people all join in the sacred chorus, ending 
with the prayer, “ Zeus, our Lord, give unto us 
whatever is good, whether we ask it of thee or 
not; whatever is evil keep from us, even if we 
ask it of thee.” 

Then the games begin. The boys race first. 
Their pedagogues have already handed in their 
names and stated their parentage, for none who 
are not of pure Greek descent can enter, nor can 
any one who has committed crime. 

A silver urn contains the lots which assign 
places to the racers. The boys move forward in 
order, and draw. Then the holders of the first 
four numbers take their places first upon the 
course. 

And now you see how convenient is the Greek 
dress, for unfasten only one button and off falls 
the chiton, and the boy is ready for the race, with 



THE SIGNAL IS GIVEN, AND THEY ARE OFF, LIKE BRIGHT 
ARROWS FROM A BOW 






















































66 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

his agile limbs free from all clothes; and without 
the least feeling of shame, for you must remem¬ 
ber that this has always been the custom with 
them. 

The signal is given and they are off, like bright 
arrows from a bow. 

The victor is Charicles, one of Cleon’s Athenian 
friends. He stands now by himself, a proud and 
happy boy, to watch the next four. 

Aristodemus is winner in the third race, Cleon 
in the fourth. And now all the winners are to 
run together for the olive crown. 

Cleon stands erect, raises his hands towards 
heaven, and calls upon Zeus, Athene, and Apollo 
to help him. 

Then once again the signal is given, and, with 
his bright locks blowing in the wind, Cleon is off. 

These two boys — the Spartan and the Athe¬ 
nian— quickly outstrip the others. The Athe¬ 
nians cheer Cleon, calling upon Pallas Athene to 
aid him for the honor of Athens. The Spartans 
shout to Aristodemus to conquer for Sparta. 

When Cleon’s foot is at the goal, Aristodemus 


6 7 


The Story of Cleon 

is but one pace behind him ; so the olive crown 
is for the golden head of Cleon instead of the 
tangled locks of the Spartan boy. But Cleon turns 
to grasp the hand of his opponent, understanding 
now, perhaps for the first time, — 


Not hate, but glory, made these chiefs contend, 
And each brave foe was in his soul a friend.” 


Now our boy will have his name inscribed first 
on the list of victors, for they always give the boys 
the first place. He has done honor to his parents 
and to his city, and he stands through the long 
summer day to watch the race of the young men 
in armor, the leaping, the wrestling, and throwing 
the spear; and last, the great chariot race. He 
has a new feeling of belonging to it all; and he 
shouts when Athens wins, and watches anxiously 
when the Corinthian and Theban youths throw 
the spear or the diskos, lest they should excel 
his dear Athenians. 

The wrestling on the second day was perhaps 
the most skillful ever seen in Greece, — the young 
men, their bodies oiled and sprinkled with sand, 


68 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

seizing each other’s slight forms with a grasp 
that would not let go. 

At last two of them only remained to decide 
the contest, a Spartan and an Athenian. They 
were locked in each other’s arms and neither 
would yield. 

The silent, almost breathless, people watch 
them as the minutes go by. At last, the Spartan, 
as if he had summoned all his strength for this 
one effort, slowly forces his antagonist to the 
ground, and then falls beside him — dead. There 
is a great shout. “The crown of the dead victor 
for Sparta! ” And the Spartans themselves are 
loudest in the applause. Nobody sorrows over him. 

They will carry back his crown, to hang it over 
his grave in Sparta. His name will be written 
among the victors ; perhaps, even, he will have a 
statue in his honor. So they dispatch a swift 
runner to Sparta to tell the good news to his 
father, and then the games go on. 

When they are finished, all these people dis¬ 
perse until the next Olympiad, and wherever they 
go they will be eagerly asked, “ Who has won at 


The Story of Cleon 69 

the games ? ” And they will tell the names with 
pride, and rehearse the story of the dead victor. 

Cleon goes home to Athens, and he finds the 
door of his father’s house decorated with garlands, 
while that of Theognis, his next neighbor, has a 
little flock of soft, white wool hanging over it. 
He shouts for joy when he sees the garlands, for 
he knows the meaning of such a decoration; a 
baby brother has been born to him, and this is 
the festival day in honor of the happy event. 

The Spartan nurse who has been hired to take 
care of the tiny baby has this morning carried 
him in her arms, two or three times around the 
burning altar of the hearth, while all the house¬ 
hold united in the worship of Hestia, the goddess 
of the hearth. In a few days will come the name- 
day, and the festival for the friends and relatives, 
Cleon is glad to be at home before this feast 
day, for he likes to see the guests in their rich 
dresses, with golden grasshoppers fastening the 
heavy curls on their foreheads ; to hear the music, 
and perhaps to get a taste of the fruits left from 
the tables. 


70 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

And what was the meaning of the flock of wool 
on the door of Theognis ? Oh, that meant a baby 
too, but a girl, not a boy. I suppose they put 
wool because she would be a spinner and weaver, 
as all Greek women were. 

And now I am reminded by the wreath on the 
door that I have never taken you into Cleon’s 
home, and you don’t even know at all what kind 
of house it is. 

Let us go out into the street and see just how 
the outside looks. 

I should call it a blank wall built up close to 
the street, with a door in the middle of it. Do 
you think Cleon’s little sister Thratta will be 
looking out at the front windows to see the peo¬ 
ple pass in the streets ? Oh, no, indeed, people 
don’t look out of their front windows in Athens. 
The front rooms are only for the porters, and 
sometimes even for the stables; so we pass 
quickly through the narrow entry that lies 
between them, and reach what I should call the 
real, true house. 

Did you notice that the door, unlike ours, opens 


The Story of Cleon 71 

outwards, and, as the house stands directly on the 
street, the opening of the door may knock down 
some person who is passing ? And yet there are 
very few such accidents, for whoever goes out 
knocks loudly on the inside of the door before 
he opens it, and the passers-by hear the knock, 
understand its meaning, and keep out of the way. 

Do you wonder why they made the doors in 
this way ? So did I, until they showed me how 
well a house might be defended against an enemy, 
if the door opened outwards — and in those old 
times, you know, there were many wars, and 
much fighting even in the streets of cities some¬ 
times. 

But we are friends, not enemies, and now we 
are fairly inside the house and looking at the 
beautiful statue that stands at the inner doorway. 
It is Apollo, god of the silver bow. He stands 
there to guard and to bless the house. 

We pass him and follow Cleon as he runs 
through the door at the end of the passage to 
seek his mother. Here we stand in a fine open 
courtyard, right in the middle of the house. The 


72 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

blue sky is overhead, rows of marble pillars form 
a colonnade around it, and pleasant rooms open 
from it on both sides. 

But neither the mother nor little Thratta is 
here; and out through the door at the other end 
runs Cleon. Another open hall, but not half so 
large as the first, and in it the sacred hearth of 
stone round which the baby was carried to-day. 

See, just as we come in, a slave girl, who has 
in her hand the fragments of a beautiful porcelain 
pitcher, has run to the hearth and knelt upon it, 
while she looks up tearfully to the hand that is 
about to strike her for her carelessness. She has 
run to the altar of the hearth for protection, and 
she is safe; no one will punish her there. 

Cleon even remembers how one wild, stormy 
night, when he was a very little child, a poor 
stranger, lost in the storm, entered the house 
and claimed the protection of the hearth, and 
how his father had said kindly, “If you were 
my enemy, you were safe on the asylum of the 
hearth.” 

I think we, who are strangers, will wait beside 


73 


The Story of Cleon 

the hearth, while Cleon opens the door at the 
left side of the hall and finds his mother, with 
the little new baby brother. 

But I hear the sound of the loom, and pres¬ 
ently Cleon will lead us still on through another 
door at the back of the hall, to the rooms where 
the maids are spinning and weaving, and then 
out into the garden, where little Thratta is playing 
at hide-and-seek with her playmate Cadmea. 

But we must not forget that Cleon has brought 
home the crown of wild olive. He is an honor 
to his parents and to Athens. His father and 
mother praise him, his sister Thratta makes him 
a myrtle wreath, and he begins to feel himself 
growing into a good citizen. 

By the way, do you notice that he wears golden 
earrings ? Don’t you think that is odd for a boy ? 
I thought so, and I wondered why, until he told 
me this story about it. 

“ Have you ever heard,” he said, “of the sacred 
oracle of Apollo at Delphi? When anything of 
importance is to be decided, the Greeks always 
go and ask the wise counsel of the oracle. So 


74 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

once when the wise men were trying to find out 
what they should do to make their sons grow up 
into good citizens, they decided to send two men 
— my father was one and Polycles the other — 
to ask the oracle. 

" This was the answer; I have heard it often, 
and know it by heart: ‘If the Athenians desire 
good citizens, let them put whatever is most 
beautiful into the ears of their sons.* 

“ Gold was the most beautiful, so after that we 
all had earrings of gold; but last summer I heard 
Pericles say in the assembly that it was not ear¬ 
rings of gold that the oracle meant, but jewels of 
thought set in golden words.” 

And now that we are at home again in Athens, 
Cleon will not let us go until we have been up to 
the Acropolis to see the statue of Pallas Athene, 
the guardian goddess of the city. If we had 
come by sea we could have seen the crest of her 
helmet and the point of her spear shining like 
gold, while we were still many miles away. 

Every year there is a festival held in her 
honor at Athens, but last year it was grander 


The Story of Cleon 75 

than usual; the third year of each Olympiad 
being especially sacred to her. 

The Athenians love her well. They believe 
that it is she who made the olive tree and blessed 
their land with it, and so, on the Acropolis, they 
cherish always her sacred olive tree. They go to 
ask her help in war and in peace; for she can 
inspire their warriors to do glorious deeds, and 
she has also taught the peaceful arts of spinning 
and weaving, and all manner of industries. I 
think we might call her the goddess of intelligence 
or wisdom. 

In her honor there are processions, dances, 
and games, — one race that I should particularly 
like to see, the torch race. The runners carry 
lighted torches, and the victor is he who reaches 
the goal with his torch still alight. That is not 
an easy thing to do, I fancy. Could you do it ? 

Cleon is still too young for the torch race, but 
his brother Eudexion took part in it. He ran, 
but he did not win. Do you want to know who 
did? It was Daldion, and they were all glad of 
his success, for he deserved it; and besides he was 


76 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

an orphan. In Athens, if a boy lost his parents, 
the state became father and mother to him, and 
instead of having only one father he had a hun¬ 
dred. So Daldion had been brought up and 
educated by the state, and at this festival of 
Pallas Athene he came of age. It was a grand 
celebration of his birthday. He was taken into 
the theater, and, in the presence of all the people, 
clad in a complete suit of armor, a gift from the 
state, in memory of his brave father who fell in 
battle; and to-day he has quickly won renown by 
this victory in the race, and everybody rejoices 
with him. 

He is also expert in the Pyrrhic dance, a beau¬ 
tiful stately dance with poised spear and shield, 
the dancers moving to the sound of martial music. 
This, too, is a service in honor of the gods. 

But we must not linger too long in Athens. 
We will only stay for the naming-day festival of 
Cleon’s baby brother. 

His father went, early in the morning, to the 
market to hire cooks and to buy fish; for in 
Athens fish is a great delicacy and much prized. 


The Story of Cleon 


77 


Skins of wine he bought, too, and baskets of 
fruit, and garlands also, enough for all the guests; 
and he hired dancing girls and flute players for 
their entertainment. 

The guests came in dresses of fine, white wool, 
bordered with purple or scarlet. Their hair was 
curled and fastened with golden grasshoppers. 
When they came in, the slaves brought perfumed 
waters for their hands, and then set out tables 
with dishes and drinking cups of silver. 

There were roasted pike, and barley cakes and 
bread carried about in baskets, and eaten with 
cheese from Sicily, or the honey of Hymettus. 
There were figs from the island of Rhodes, where 
the great Colossus bestrides the harbor; dates 
brought across the sea from Egypt, and almonds 
and melons and other fruits. 

Cleon himself is admitted to the dining room 
for the first time, because he has honored him¬ 
self and his family by his victory. 

He cannot, of course, come as the equal of his 
father and the guests. They will recline on the 
soft-cushioned couches, and the slaves will serve 


78 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

them, while he sits upright upon a bench and 
listens in respectful silence to the talk and the 
music. 

He does not share the feast, but he knows 
very well that a boy should not expect it; and I 
fancy he enjoys quite as well his supper of pan¬ 
cakes and honey, after the dinner is over and the 
guests are gone. 

It is night. Cleon goes through the courtyard, 
passes between the tall pillars of the colonnade 
to his little bedroom, and falls quickly asleep on 
his bed, which is hardly more than a hard bench. 
And we — the strangers — will sail away to Italy, 
and up the Yellow Tiber, to Rome. 



CHAPTER V 

THE STORY OF HORATIUS, THE ROMAN BOY, 
WHOSE ANCESTOR “KEPT THE 
BRIDGE SO WELL” 

“ And wives still pray to Juno, 

For boys with hearts as bold 
As his who kept the bridge so well — 

In the brave days of old." 

Shall we sail to Rome in a trireme ? 

But what is a trireme ? you will ask. 

Look at the picture at the top of this page, 
and when you notice the three rows of oars, you 
will remember that tri means three. Do you 


79 
















80 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

see how one rower must sit a little behind as 
well as above another, so that the oars need not 
interfere? There are little seats, in three rows, 
fastened to the ship, inside, in just such posi¬ 
tions, for the rowers. And with all these oars, 
and perhaps a square sail if the wind is fair, we 
go pretty swiftly over the water. But a trireme 
was a war vessel, and I don’t believe the Romans 
would be willing to take passengers on a war 
vessel. Nevertheless, I think we can go, you 
and I, for it isn’t our bodies, but only our minds, 
that have taken passage for this voyage, and we 
shall not occupy any room. 

The trireme does, however, carry some pas¬ 
sengers besides ourselves, — unwilling passengers, 
I fear, — fair-haired women and young girls and 
boys, prisoners of war, who are to be sold in the 
market place (the Forum) when we reach Rome. 
Among them are one or two men, wise and 
grave ; one of them, I am sure, is a writer. He 
has a tablet and stylus, such as we used to see 
in Athens. Some noble Roman will perhaps buy 
him for a secretary, and employ him to copy 


The Story of Horatius 81 

books, for as yet there is no printing, and many 
men earn their living by writing. 

We land and follow the slaves up the streets of 
the city to the Forum, where they are to be sold. 
There are vases and pictures and statues also for 
sale in this Forum. They have been brought 
from the Greek city of Corinth, and they certainly 
remind us of the beautiful things we saw when 
we were in that country with Cleon. Doxius, the 
slave, also seems to be a Greek, and is probably 
a learned man. 

Let us stand here at one side and watch the 
buyers, who come wrapped in their togas of white 
wool with purple borders. 

In Rome you know a man’s rank by his dress; 
the purple stripes mean magistrates and senators. 
Boys and girls, too, may wear the purple-bordered 
toga, girls till they are married, boys till the age 
of fourteen or thereabouts, when with fitting pomp 
and ceremony they assume the “toga of manhood,” 
the plain white garment that marks the common 
citizen of Rome. The common citizens can’t afford 
to buy at this market, so you will not see them here. 


82 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Here is one tall man whose toga fairly drags 
on the ground behind him, while the heavy fold, 
that usually lies on the left shoulder, is drawn 
up.over his head in place of a hat. You would 
hardly think he could walk at all in a dress so 
cumbersome, and I am sure he never runs, like 
the light-footed Greeks. But while we watch 
him, here comes another man — a senator, I 
know, by his dress — and beside him a boy 
wearing a long tunic with sleeves, and leather 
shoes with little ivory crescents on the instep. 
This boy is Horatius. Horatius what ? do you 
ask? 

Oh, nothing. He hasn’t yet earned another 
last name, and he hasn’t yet legally received his 
first name; that will come when he changes his 
boy’s toga for a man’s. 

Horatius is his family name, and his sister, 
who went, when he was a baby, to be a vestal 
virgin, has only the name Horatia. Don’t forget 
Horatia, for I shall let you see her one day. 

While we are talking about their names, the 
father has looked with keen eyes down the long 


The Story of Horatius 


83 


row of slaves. He doesn’t want a cook, nor a 
dancing girl, nor a lady’s maid, but he does want 
a teacher for his boy, and a Greek teacher he 
would prefer to any other. So he stands for a 
few minutes before Doxius ; talks with the dealer 
about his accomplishments ; reads the little tablet 
that hangs from his neck, and finally offers fifty 
pieces of gold for the man. 

There is some bargaining between them on 
the subject, while the young Horatius looks with 
a sort of bashful curiosity at the man who is 
probably to be his chief companion for some 
years to come. Then Doxius is delivered over 
to his master, and follows him to his home on 
the Palatine Hill. It is a high house with nar¬ 
row windows, and as we open the door the light 
falls into the passageway and shows a floor of 
various-colored marbles. Do you think it pretty ? 
Wait until you reach the atrium — a sort of open 
room in the middle of the house, like the court 
of Cleon’s home — and there I will show you the 
handsomest floor you ever saw. Stones of lovely 
colors laid together to form a picture — you would 


84 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

think it painted — of a white dove resting on a 
fountain’s edge, and you can see even the shadow 
of its little head on the water. The dining room 
floor is made to appear as if strewed with the 
remains of the dinner. It is skillfully wrought, 
no doubt, but I don’t like it very well. It is 
commonly called “the unswept.” 

The father of Horatius stops in the atrium to 
give some directions to Doxius, and then sum¬ 
mons another slave to show him the men’s apart¬ 
ments. In the mean time our boy stands quietly 
waiting beside a bronze statue which is at one 
side of the family altar, — a statue of a bold, 
hardy soldier in armor, halting upon one knee, 
as if wounded, and yet with uplifted sword and 
an expression of undaunted courage. 

Of course we all know it is the statue of Ho¬ 
ratius “who kept the bridge so well,” and we 
can see now that our boy Horatius is not unlike 
him in face and figure. I hope he is also as brave 
at heart. 

There are also other statues besides that, of 
the brave ancestors — the household gods, the 


85 


The Story of Horatius 

Lares and the Penates. They stand in the 
atrium, and see, they are decked with fresh 
violets and garlands of rosemary. 

As Horatius stands waiting, he looks up at 
the sky, for the middle part of the atrium is 
uncovered, you know, and he is glad to see that 
no clouds are floating across the blue. He is 
thinking of to-morrow. And what of to-morrow ? 
Why, it is the Kalends of March, the first day 
of the year, and he is to go to see his sister, 
Horatia, light the fire of Vesta. If the sun does 
not shine it cannot be done, for that sacred fire 
must not be lighted from anything less holy than 
the sun itself. Horatia went when she was seven 
years old to tend the sacred fire in the temple, 
and to learn all the holy services of the goddess 
Vesta. Ten years she spent in learning them 
before she was ready to take upon herself all the 
sacred office; ten years more she serves at the 
altar, and then ten more she will still remain in 
the temple to teach the young children, who will 
come as she did, in order that they may take her 
place when her time ends. 


86 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

You will like to see her, and we will go with 
Horatius and his father the next morning to the 
temple of Vesta. 

We go down to the great Forum at the foot 
of the Palatine Hill, where stands the round tem¬ 
ple with its many columns and its small inner 
cella or shrine. 

It is the first day of the year, and not only 
must the sacred fire be newly lighted from the 
sun, but the temple must be decorated anew 
with purifying laurel, and sprinkled with the 
water of the holy spring — though this last, in¬ 
deed, is done every day. But also the offerings 
of salt in simple earthen vessels will be made, 
with prayers that Vesta, the goddess of the 
hearth, will protect the hearths and homes of 
the people. 

And now I must turn aside from my story a 
minute to tell you of a beautiful thing that it was 
once given to Horatia to do. It was like a bless¬ 
ing on her whole life. One morning she was 
on her way to the fountain of Egeria for the 
water with which to sprinkle the temple. As 


The Story of Horatius 


87 


this fair, pure-hearted young girl walked in the 
early morning, through the quiet street, in the 
pure white robe and veil, she met a prisoner in 
chains, with bowed head, led away by an officer 
toward the prison at the other side of the Forum. 
At the sight of her the culprit fell on his knees, 
and a glad light came into his uplifted eyes. 
Instantly the officer struck off his chains and 
told him that he was free to go where he would; 
for the sight of the vestal virgin had saved him . 1 

“But,” you will say, “perhaps he had done 
something very wrong, and deserved the pun¬ 
ishment.” I know it, perhaps he did; but what 
is punishment for ? It is to make us better. 
Now, if the man is made really better, let us be 
thankful that it was by the sight of the pure 
and good, rather than by the stern and dreary 
imprisonment. There is severity and punishment 
enough, and more than enough, in Rome, so we 
will cherish this little glimpse of gentleness and 
mercy. 

1 A convicted criminal accidentally meeting a Vestal was 
released. 


88 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Now I am going back to the temple of Vesta 
and the Kalends of March. The first day of 
the year, I think I told you, didn’t I ? If you 
will count from March, you will learn how Sep¬ 
tember got its name of seventh month, although 
to us it is the ninth. 

March was named in honor of Mars, the war 
god; April, from a word that means opening, for 
its opening leaves and buds; May, from Maius 
(greater) or the month of growth; June, from 
Juno (help), and then Quintilis, which only meant 
fifth, Sextilis, sixth, and so on, until Janus, who 
had his little brazen temple on the Janiculum, 
took January. And last of all February meant 
the purifying month, in which all things should 
be washed clean, and made ready for the new 
year. 

And on this New Year’s morning Horatius puts 
on his clean, new tunic, hangs his golden bulla 
round his neck, and goes down to the Forum. 
He stands quiet and grave while the white-robed 
virgins pass, a lictor going before them to clear 
the way. 


The Story of Horatius 


89 


It is something to him to see his sister once 
in a while in this way. He never sees her 
nearer, and he has never spoken a word to her 
since his baby voice bade her “Good-by” ten 
years ago. But he knows it is an honor to the 
house that she should serve in the temple; and 
he feels sure that the goddess of the hearth 
watches over them all for her sake. A Roman 
maiden can serve the republic best in this way, 
as a Roman boy by becoming great in the Forum 
and in the field. 

Another festival, too, helps to celebrate the 
new year, and it is one that the boys care more 
for than they do for the vestal service; at least 
if they haven’t a sister among the virgins. 

You will see that processions of one kind or 
another were the most common things in Rome. 
To-day it is the leapers, or dancers, who bear 
the twelve brazen shields.. Perhaps you know 
the story how one of these shields fell from 
heaven, and was therefore peculiarly sacred, and 
the other eleven were made exactly like it, so 
that even the priests themselves can’t tell which 


90 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

is the real and which the imitation. This was 
done that the holy shield might not be stolen, 
and indeed the twelve are kept with the great¬ 
est care. Only once a year, on the Kalends of 
March, they are carried through the streets in a 
sort of stately dance; and the boys, who are born 
soldiers, delight to follow them. But Horatius 
cannot spend all his time on processions. The 
Kalendar has other days besides feast days. 

Do you realize that there are no weeks like 
ours ? No Sundays nor Mondays, and so on, but 
at the new moon the people all go to the capitol 
to hear the priest announce the Kalendar, or 
list of days, from this moon until the next. 
Kalends, the first day of the month, then Nones, 
the fifth or seventh, and after that Ides, origi¬ 
nally the time of the full moon, coming on the 
thirteenth or fifteenth of the month. 

But the odd thing about this way of reckoning 
time was that they always counted it backwards ; 
and when Horatius was a little boy he used to 
be taught to call the thirty-first of December 
the day before the Kalends of January, and so 


The Story of Horatius 91 

on. It would be very confusing to us ; but so 
would our weeks and days be confusing to him, 
I suppose. 

After the shield festival came regular school 
days until the Ides of March, and Horatius is 
set to work at once by his schoolmaster Doxius. 
He writes on a waxed tablet with a stylus, as 
Cleon did, and he studies arithmetic — the mul¬ 
tiplication table had been by this time invented 
— and he begins to learn the Greek language 
and to declaim both in his own Latin language 
and in Greek. He does not study geography. 
There are no schoolbooks yet on that subject, 
and the few writers who have told us anything 
about geography in those days would give you an 
idea that the world was a circular plain lying 
chiefly about the Mediterranean Sea. But if he 
doesn’t study geography he studies something 
else of more importance to him. A well-taught 
Roman boy ought to know by heart the twelve 
tables of the law that hang in the Forum. And 
it isn’t only in order that he may obey them, 
that he learns them. He will have to try cul- 


92 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

prits himself, very likely, or at any rate plead 
at the bar in behalf of himself or his friend; for 
no Roman ever rises to distinction who is not 
capable of eloquent pleading, and the honors and 
offices of the republic follow the silver-tongued 
orator. 

Before Horatius was seven years old, his 
mother trained him to speak always clearly and 
well, and now no day passes that he does not 
declaim the verses of the poets or the speeches 
of the senators. He goes, too, to the grammar 
school, where he is taught to understand the 
great authors, and to learn their graces and 
elegances of language; for just as Cleon must 
become a good citizen, so, too, must Horatius. 
He may, one day, be chosen consul; then he 
must be prepared to command an army, or make 
a stirring speech in the Forum. He knows this, 
and he wants to be ready for it. And although 
he loves his play as well as you do, and runs off 
to his marbles or hoop or top whenever he can, he 
will gladly leave all other games when Valerius 
and Julius call him to join them in playing court; 


93 


The Story of Horatius 

for little Marius has consented to be prisoner, 
accused of the crime of counterfeiting the public 
coin. 

They have borrowed a black tunic, for Marius 
must wear the dress of the accused. Julius will 
be judge, and all the boys of the neighborhood 
must have their names presented, that a jury 
may be drawn. But when the names are drawn, 
Marius objects to Scipio, because he has never been 
his friend ; and by the right of a Roman citizen his 
objection is allowed, and another boy drawn. 

And now Horatius is the lawyer who under 
takes the accusation in a bold speech, showing 
first the evils arising to the city from false coins ; 
then the shameful lack of patriotism in the man 
who could so injure his country; and lastly, relat¬ 
ing all the facts of this particular instance, the 
crime of Caius. 

Then Valerius rises for the defense. He can¬ 
not deny that the crime is great, and if his client 
had committed it, he would be worthy of punish¬ 
ment. “But look at Marius. Can you believe 
such a thing of him ? ” 


94 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Then he calls witnesses to testify to his gen¬ 
eral good character and honesty, trying in every 
way to prove that he did not commit the deed. 

Each little orator pleads with all his might, 
and the crowd of boys applauds, while the grave 
jury listen carefully to every word. 

Now the jury must go out, each one having 
received three little tablets, one guilty , one not 
guilty , the third asking postponement or a further 
trial. 

The boys have no tablets; but a white pebble, 
a black one, and a bit of wood will serve instead. 
And while they deliberate, poor little Marius, 
who begins to wish that he hadn’t agreed to be 
prisoner, throws himself at their feet to move 
their compassion. But too much compassion 
will spoil the play, and into the box the black 
pebbles go, which declare him guilty. Then 
comes the sentence — the sentence of banish¬ 
ment, so terrible to every Roman citizen. 

The little judge, Julius, standing gravely before 
them, pronounces the sentence, “ I forbid you the 
use of water or of fire in the city of Rome.” And 


The Story of Horatius 95 

that, as you plainly understand, means that he can 
no longer live in Rome. 

I think you begin to see where we learned 
how to conduct trials, don’t you ? 

Then his friends lead Marius outside the gates, 
and it seems to have become such terrible earnest 
that I am glad to say it all ends with a grand race 
round the Campus Martius, and on the way home 
they stop to spend a sesterce for marbles. 

There have been some school days, and busy 
ones too, and now it is about time for another 
festival — a sort of Sunday, when the boys and 
girls go in a procession to the temple of Minerva 
to pray for wisdom. She is the wise goddess, 
and skillful in all arts, — the same whom the 
Athenians called Pallas Athene; and you remem¬ 
ber her statue of gold and ivory on the Acropolis 
at Athens. 

Since this is the day when they seek wisdom, it 
is also the day when they carry to their teachers 
pay for instruction, and perhaps a little present 
besides. There is a five days’ spring vacation, 
and then the school work begins again. 


g 6 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Of course you don’t expect to hear about all 
the festivals and processions that followed. I 
shall only tell you of those in which Horatius 
took some part or had some special interest. 
And so we will leave him at work and at play 
until the Kalends of May. 

We have May Day games out in the fields our¬ 
selves. So did he, though perhaps not on exactly 
the same day, out in the Campus Martius, beyond 
the city walls. And just as the Greeks made a 
religious service of their games, so the Romans 
celebrated these May Day games in honor of 
Jupiter, Juno, Apollo the Sun-god, Diana, and 
the Fates. 

But not on every May Day were such exten¬ 
sive games celebrated, only once in a hundred 
years ; 1 for so the Sibylline books directed. 
Now, if you don’t know what the Sibylline books 
were, I leave you to find out. It is a pretty 
story, and you will like it, but I haven’t time 
to tell it. 


1 Some old traditions make the period no years. 


The Story of Horatius 97 

Horatius knew — indeed he can’t remember 
the time when he did not know — as every 
Roman boy ought. 

Well, the Sibylline books had directed the 
celebration of these games at the beginning of 
every age — and an age was a hundred years — 
in order that the city should always flourish, and 
should conquer all other nations; and you may 
be sure the warlike Romans would neglect noth¬ 
ing that could help to accomplish this, their 
greatest object. 

Since it is not probable that any man would 
live long enough to take part in these games 
twice, the heralds proclaim an invitation to all 
the world to come on that day to a festival which 
they had never seen before and would never see 
again. And happy were the boys and girls who 
happened to be boys and girls at that time, for 
there was a part in the games for them to per¬ 
form, as indeed there was for everybody. 

A few days before, fifteen officers, sitting in 
the Capitol and in the Palatine temple, dis¬ 
tributed to the people sulphur and other purifying 


98 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

substances, for all the city must be pure, and fresh, 
and clean before approaching the gods. 

And since these celebrations were so rare, I 
will briefly tell you all that was done. First the 
people all carried wheat and barley and beans to 
Diana’s temple on the Aventine Hill, and then 
they passed whole nights in prayer, and after 
this began the three days and three nights of 
the festival itself. 

On the first night were the sacrifices. Three 
altars were built beside the Tiber, and three 
lambs were offered to the gods. Horatius saw 
them led up to the altar all wound about with 
wreaths of leaves, while the white-robed priest 
stood ready with his hand upon the altar to offer 
the prayers. 

At the signal for prayer a great silence fell 
upon the vast multitude in the Campus Martius ; 
but, as soon as the priest’s voice was heard begin¬ 
ning the prayers, to Janus first, to Vesta last, 
and to all the gods of the upper and lower worlds 
between, the pipers struck up a loud strain and 
continued it until the prayer was ended. 


The Story of Horatius 


99 


What an irreverent thing to do! 

Oh, no; it was done lest, in the midst of the 
prayer, any unlucky noise should be heard. 

And now the priest sprinkles corn, or salt, or 
meal on the head of the lamb, plucks a few hairs 
from its head and throws them on the altar, 
marks with his knife a line from head to tail, 
and delivers him to the lower priests to be killed. 
Then the special parts for the offering are laid 
upon the fire, and the Augurs, watching them, 
see with joy that the flames take them quickly ; 
so they know that the gods accept the offering. 

Next, in the great theater lighted with torches 
and fires, all the people sing a hymn to the gods, 
and then begin their sports: races, wrestling, 
throwing the spear, riding, etc. They are not 
unlike the games that Cleon saw at Olympia, 
and, indeed, I think the Romans learned them 
from the Greeks. 

The second day, the mother of Horatius, and 
also the mothers of his friends Valerius and Julius, 
and many others, go in procession to the Capitol 
to sing hymns to Jupiter; and the last day 


ioo The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Horatius himself and twenty-six of his playmates — 
even little Marius who played prisoner, and all 
the boys who served on the jury—together with 
twenty-seven little girls, go to the temple of the 
Palatine Apollo and sing a hymn that has been 
written on purpose for them, .and that they have 
been practising for weeks. 

So you see everybody has some part in the 
festival, since it is for the interest of all — men, 
women, and children — that the city shall prosper. 
And thus early the boys learn that it is also their 
duty to advance the grandeur of Rome. 

Do you notice how the plays are a part of the 
religion, and the religion is a part of the plays ? 
That is what struck me more than anything else 
about it. 

The May festival is over. The boys never 
saw it before. They will never see it again, and 
by and by they will be telling their sons about it, 
and saying to them, “When you are old men, 
you may perhaps see the like yourselves.” I 
am glad we were here just in time, aren’t you? 

Now the boys can go back to their studies 


The Story of Horatius ioi 

again. Horatius will take his satchel with books 
and writing tablet, and go to the grammar school 
every day; but his best teaching is at home 
with Doxius, who is reading with him the Greek 
poets, and who has grown to love the boy and 
to be loved by him. 

One day his father takes him to the senate; 
for the consuls have decreed that a senator may 
sometimes bring his son to listen to the debates, 
and learn to what duties he will probably be 
himself called. 

Perhaps you would not care to have me tell 
all that he hears and sees there; but on the 
next holiday the boys play senate, and we will 
see how they do it. 

It wasn’t a Saturday afternoon, but it was on 
some similar holiday, that Horatius, and Valerius, 
and Julius, and the others played senate, using 
the place inclosed by the pillars of a portico 
for their meeting, and conducting the affairs of 
the city as wisely as they could. 

Horatius was consul, and he assembled his 
senators and began to ask their opinions on the 


102 


The Road from Long Ago to Now 

very subject he had heard discussed when he 
went to the real senate with his father. 

“But stop,” said the boy; “before we begin 
let’s see who shall be tribune; somebody must 
speak for the plebs. We ought to vote and 
choose a tribune.” “Well,” said Valerius, “run 
into the potter’s street, and round to the corn- 
dealers’ corner, and call in the plebeian boys to 
a comitia, and we will choose a tribune of the 
people.” 

So they vote, and Calpurnius is chosen trib¬ 
une. 

“Now,” said Horatius to him, “when Julius 
makes his long speech, and we are going to vote 
that the treasures of Attalus shall go into the 
public treasury, you must stand up and say, 
‘Veto,’ and that will stop us, and then you can 
propose to have them divided for the poor ple¬ 
beians.” 

So the boys played senate and practised the 
art of governing. Many a time they sent out a 
consul at the head of a little army, and brought 
him home in triumph. 


103 


The Story of Horatius 

The Ides of Quintilis had passed (can you tell 
what time that is by our reckoning?), and the 
knights in purple, with their olive crowns, had 
ridden in a gay procession to the temple of Castor 
and Pollux ; and now it was just at the harvest 
time that one of the boys’ plays became earnest, 
for Scipio came home from Spain, bringing treas¬ 
ures and captives, and he was decreed a triumph 
and a crown. 

We will stand with the boys in the crowded 
streets, or on the platform if we can get a place, 
and see it. 

The great procession is marshaled outside the 
gates, and starts from the Campus Martius, where 
we went together on May Day, you remember. 

As it enters the city gates, where the magis¬ 
trates meet it, we shall hear the trumpets sound 
a charge, and we shall be ready to shout with 
the people “ Io triomphe,” as the head of the 
column appears in the Via Sacra (sacred street). 
First the lictors to clear the way, then the trum¬ 
peters, then the victims for sacrifice — the oxen 
with gilded horns and oak wreaths. Next look 


104 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

at the wagons full of spoils, treasures of armor, 
cups of gold and silver, costly cloths and purple 
robes. Then come the poor captives: fathers, 
mothers, and even little children, to be made a 
show for the honor of the conqueror. 

And now everybody crowds forward, for here 
is the General himself, sitting in his chariot and 
wearing the toga picta , a purple dress embroid¬ 
ered all over with gold, and the tunica palmata 
wrought with palm branches. See the laurel 
branch in one hand, and the victorious eagle on 
the scepter in the other. His laurel crown of tri¬ 
umph is held above his head, and all the knights 
and soldiers follow him with laurel boughs. 

Look, there is a soldier with the civic crown 
of oak leaves. We will all shout for him, for he 
has saved the life of a Roman citizen in battle. 
And here comes Caius Cossus with his mural 
crown like a little turreted wall. That means 
that he was the first to scale the walls of the 
besieged city. And there is many a chain of 
gold and many a medal to be seen as we look 
down the long ranks. 



SCIPIO CAME HOME FROM SPAIN BRINGING TREASURES AND CAPTIVES 





















































































































































































































106 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Through the Via Sacra across the Forum they 
march, and up the Capitoline Hill to the Temple 
of Jupiter, already gloriously decorated with the 
spoils of many wars. There the General lays 
his crown in the lap of the great statue, the 
sacrifice is offered, and a long day of splendors 
is over. 

The boys have followed every step of the way, 
but they aren’t at all tired, — oh, no! Still, their 
supper of bread and honey does taste good, and 
they even wish that they might also have a bit 
of the roasted pig, that is carried into the dining 
room where the father entertains his friends in 
honor of the day. 

The next day, while , the boys are at play, we 
may overhear Valerius telling a story he has 
heard from his father, of a triumph long ago, 
that ended in the founding of a temple to Castor 
and Pollux, who had given victory to the Romans. 
“The boys helped found that temple, and the 
girls too,” said Publius. “ I wish they would 
build one now; then we could go to sprinkle the 
place with brook water, river water, and spring 


The Story of Horatius 107 

water. And then we could take hold of the 
ropes and help pull the first great stone into 
place." 

“ My grandfather threw gold and silver in with 
the first stone of that temple," cried Julius. 
“ And so did mine," said Horatius. 

But time goes on, and our Roman year is draw¬ 
ing to a close. 

Early in December the father of little Vale¬ 
rius dies, and his funeral is celebrated with ora¬ 
tions, and with shows of gladiators and wild 
beasts in the Forum and the Circus. These 
gladiators are Gauls and Germans — barbarians 
the Romans call them — taken in war and trained 
to fight with each other or with beasts, for the 
amusement of the people. You will hear more 
of such barbarians by and by, if you read my 
next chapter. 

Do .you begin to think that there is nothing 
but fighting in Rome ? If you do you will be 
more than half right. But we are coming now 
to a very merry, happy time. 

Perhaps you have guessed what it is, for you 


108 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

know I said it was already December. Don’t 
you believe it is Christmas ? It is, at any rate, 
in December, and would be just about our Christ¬ 
mas time. But it wasn’t Christmas after all, 
and why ? 

Where do we get the name Christmas ? “ From 

the name Christ,” you will answer. And do you 
realize that when Horatius was a boy it was more 
than a hundred years before the birth of Christ ? 
So you see it couldn’t be Christmas ; and yet what 
games they had; what presents to each and all! 
The servants were allowed to be equal with their 
masters and mistresses, and it seemed the right 
of every one to be merry. 

They called it Saturnalia; but I don’t care 
what name it had, — it certainly had a delightful 
Christmas feeling about it. 

The poor people had gifts of corn and oil and 
honey, which meant bread and butter and sugar 
(you know they had never heard of sugar in 
those days). And the boys had new tunics and 
new shoes. They wore neither stockings nor 
trousers. 


The Story of Horatius 109 

Baskets of figs, and nuts, and pomegranates, 
and apples were sent from friend to friend. And 
here comes a slave to the door, bringing to the 
father of Horatius a beautiful set of marble chess¬ 
men, a present from his friend Valerius, and with 
it a letter full of kind greetings and good wishes. 
Not a letter written on paper, but on two waxed 
tablets tied together and the string sealed with a 
bit of wax. After he has read it, he can rub it 
out and write an answer on the same tablet. 

In the home of Horatius, and perhaps in many 
another besides, a good deed was done that made 
that Christmas Day memorable. 

All the year the father of Horatius had noticed 
how faithfully and well the Greek slave Doxius 
had watched over and instructed his son, and he 
has resolved to give him, on the Saturnalia, the 
very best gift that he can. 

Do you guess what ? 

If you can’t, come with us before the magis¬ 
trate, and see the glad face of Doxius when his 
master lays a hand upon his head and says: 

“ This man I will to be free.” 


no The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Then the slave passed out from under the 
hand of his master, and next from the rod of the 
praetor, and became a freed man, and put on 
the cap and the toga. 

His master goes home to hang a chain upon 
the household Lar in honor of this act, and Dox- 
ius himself comes back to continue his teaching, 
though he feels like a different man, master now 
of himself. 

Of course the boys are having a vacation, and 
perhaps we owe the custom of our Christmas 
holidays to them. Theirs even reached as far 
as New Year’s Day, though it was not New 
Year, but only the Kalends of January. Yet it 
was the day when a new magistrate came into 
office, and a day for giving presents. And since 
January is named for Janus, it must of course 
have a festival day for its god. 

The boys have been very busy practising for 
a grand performance on this day. It is called the 
“ Game of Troy.” Nobody can join in it but 
the sons of magistrates. Horatius is going, and 
Valerius and Julius and thirty-six others; but 


The Story of Horatius 111 

the sons of the potter and the scythe-maker and 
the armorer and the weaver are not allowed. 
Their fathers used to be slaves, and are now 
only freed men; some of them are the clients or 
dependents of the father of Horatius. The boys 
who have the privilege think it a great honor to 
take part in this play. 

There is a fine old poem which you will per¬ 
haps read some day in Latin, that tells us 
all about this Game of Troy. It is in fact a 
mimic battle not unlike the tournaments of after¬ 
years. 

There are to be three captains, each with his 
band of twelve boys. They will perform in the 
great Circus, and all the city will come to see. 

How they have practised and drilled! They 
had to train their horses as well as themselves, 
for there is to be a cavalry charge, a pretended 
flight, then a sudden wheel-about upon the pur¬ 
suing enemy and a grand discharge of arrows to 
drive them back; and last of all, a sort of curious, 
mazy dance on horseback, in and out, back and 
forward, until the spectators see nothing but a 


112 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

mingled mass of thirty-nine boys and thirty-nine 
horses. And then at a word, as if by magic, the 
little commander, Julius, brings them into close 
and orderly ranks before the consuls, and the 
great Circus echoes with applause. 

It is a great day for Roman boys* Wouldn’t 
you like to be there to see? 

Horatius isn’t a captain, — indeed he is the 
youngest boy there, and of course takes the 
lowest place. But he did his part well, rode his 
white horse handsomely, and looked like a gallant 
little soldier in his purple tunic, with his golden 
bulla hanging on his breast, and his bright quiver 
of arrows over his shoulder. 

Doxius had trained him carefully, that he might 
sit erect and hold up his head gracefully, even if 
his horse did prance and curvet when the trumpet 
sounded for the game to begin. 

Besides the boys’ Game of Troy, there was, of 
course, a procession and a sacrifice. 

Then followed more school days, and plays out¬ 
side the walls, under the arches of the great 
aqueduct, which were good places for forums or 


The Story of Horatius 113 

circuses; and then we reach the Ides of Feb¬ 
ruary, the feast of Lupercus, or Pan. 

This time I will ask you how we shall cele¬ 
brate it, for now you have lived here long enough 
to know. 

“ A sacrifice and a procession,” did you say? 

Certainly, you are right; but there were some 
odd things about this festival that I think I must 
tell you. 

Perhaps you know that Pan was the god of 
the shepherds. If you have seen pictures of 
him, you must remember that he has goat’s feet. 
So a goat was the sacrifice offered, and with it 
a dog, because of the sheep dogs that the shep¬ 
herds always have. 

It was an old, old custom, brought into Rome 
from some more distant time and place — from 
Greece, perhaps, — and as Horatius is to take 
part in it, you will see how curious it is. 

He has been chosen, with his friend Valerius, 
to join in the sacrifice; so the two boys stand 
beside the priests, and when the poor animals 
are killed, a priest smears the boys’ foreheads 


114 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

with the bloody knife, and immediately another 
wipes off the blood with a flock of wool dipped 
in milk. Then the boys must laugh, whether 
they feel like laughing or not. 

As Horatius comes home to his father’s house 
on the beautiful hill, he passes a band of Ger¬ 
man gladiators returning from the amphitheater, 
carrying with them a comrade badly wounded in 
the fight. They have angry faces, and I do not 
wonder, do you? It is not a manly nor kindly 
thing that they should be made to hurt or kill 
each other as an amusement for the Romans. 

Do you begin now to realize how the Romans, 
and the Greeks too, and the Persians, are show¬ 
ing us the homes of our great-great-great-grand- 
fathers ? 

And where shall we go next ? 

To no rich city, with temples and palaces and 
grand processions, but to a rough, wild country, 
with scattered villages, great forests, and hordes 
of half-savage warriors; and there we shall find 
Wulf, the Saxon boy. 



THE STORY OF WULF, THE SAXON BOY, WHO 
HELPED TO MAKE ENGLAND 

“ It is only the coward who thinks he shall live forever ” 

“ I dare you to run as far as the eagle tree,” 
cried Ella. And the two boys started, bow in 
hand and quiver upon shoulder, for a race towards 
the forest. 

The wind blew their fair hair back from their 
faces, and their flowing curls floated on the breeze ; 
for Wulf and Ella were Saxon boys, sons of free¬ 
men, and their long hair — the sign of their free 
birth — had never been cut. 


”5 








116 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

They soon left the village behind them, and 
neared the gloomy forest, the mark land, that 
spread like a broad belt around every Saxon vil¬ 
lage, — a mark, or boundary, between neighbor 
and neighbor, as well as between enemies. 

On the outskirts of the forest the boys stopped 
to take breath, and Wulf threw down his bow 
and stooped to tighten the woolen straps that, 
crossed and recrossed about his legs, bound his 
gaiters firmly on. 

The race had loosened one of them, and before 
the final start for the eagle tree, Wulf would 
make sure that no such trifle as a loosened strap 
should hinder him from winning. 

“ Ready! ” they both shouted, and, tossing back 
their hair, away they went, like arrows from the 
bow, away into the deep, dark forest. As they 
went on they became silent, and when they reached 
the great beech tree, rudely carved with a picture 
of an eagle, they did not shout; but Wulf, who 
reached it half a minute sooner than his com¬ 
panion, paused for an instant under the broad 
branches, and thus assuring himself that his com- 


The Story of Wulf 117 

panion recognized him as victor, turned his face 
towards the village again. No one would linger 
long near the mark tree, for it was a sacred spot 
which marked the boundary between two villages, 
always to be treated with respect, and almost 
with awe, by the people. Whoever stepped over 
his neighbor’s mark must do it at his peril. So 
the boys had shown not a little daring in choos¬ 
ing the eagle tree as their goal, and no wonder 
they did not care to remain under its shade. 

As they tramped along homeward through the 
rough forest path, they heard the crackling of brush¬ 
wood on their right, and a herd of pigs, guarded by a 
boy about twelve years old, broke across the footway. 

The swineherd was a half-naked boy, dressed 
only in a tunic or jacket of skin reaching nearly 
to his knees, and he had a metal ring around 
his neck. This ring was not a collar or neck¬ 
lace worn as an ornament. It fitted so tightly 
that it could not be taken off. It must have 
been soldered on and was meant to stay. It was 
marked, as a dog’s collar is, with his master’s 
mark or sign, for this boy was a slave or serf. 


118 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

His hair, which was closely cropped, was less 
fair than the long locks of Wulf and Ella, and 
he carried no bow and arrows, as the other boys 
did. 

The two boys greeted him in a friendly way. 

“ Do the swine feed well here?” asked Wulf. 

“Yes, on the best of beechnuts and acorns, 
but they will stray towards the mark tree, and 
lead me where great Grendel, the man-eater, may 
find me.” 

“ But Grendel belongs yonder, away over the 
mountains,” said Ella. 

“Nay, but he is a mighty stepper over the 
mark,” said the swineherd, shaking his head omi¬ 
nously. “ There is no knowing when he may 
come, nor where.” 

“ Don’t be a coward, Uffen,” cried Wulf. “ As 
soon as Grendel steps over the mark, he must 
blow his horn, and that will give you time to pre¬ 
pare to meet him.” 

“Yes, yes,” muttered Uffen, “you may well 
say so. With what shall I meet him ? A thrall 
has no arms.” 


The Story of Wulf 119 

“ I will defend you,” said Wulf; “ my grand¬ 
father’s thrall shall not fail of a gallant protector ” ; 
and he looked to his bowstring, and, drawing an 
arrow to the head, faced the gloomy forest with 
the air of an earl’s son. 

“ I trust my sword, I trust my steed, 

But most I trust myself, at need,” 


sang Ella laughingly, but he also gave a loving 
look of admiration at his young cousin, who was 
to be the head of the family by and by, and whose 
loyal companion he was destined to be. 

Just at this instant, as if to test their courage, 
the blast of a horn rang out loud and clear from 
the forest. 

“ It is Grendel himself,” whispered the swine¬ 
herd. 

“ Nonsense ! ” cried the keen-eyed Wulf, “ use 
your eyes, man, and see the earldorman’s mes¬ 
senger already taking the path to the moot hill.” 

The moot hill was a low rounded hill just out¬ 
side the village, where the free mark-men or 
landholders met once a month to hold their moot 


120 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

court and deal out justice to all men, and settle 
all affairs that needed not to go up to the great 
witenagemot, or meeting of the wise men of the 
nation. 

Within the circle of the moot court the boys 
could not enter, but they loved to seat themselves 
on rock or tree-trunk at the foot of the hill, and 
listen to the clash of arms by which the men gave 
their assent to any proposal of the earldormen, 
and gather from some old man too lame and 
weary to climb the hill, such tales and old songs 
as all boys in all countries and all times love to 
hear. 

So Ella and Wulf left the swineherd to his 
beechnuts and acorns, and tried another race to 
the foot of the moot hill. 

They were just in time to see the earldorman’s 
messenger welcomed by Erkennin, the stately 
grandfather of young Wulf, and they seated them¬ 
selves on a mossy rock to wait for the end of 
the meeting. 

Presently old Elric came slowly down the hill. 
His long white hair flowed over his shoulders, 


I 2 I 


The Story of Wulf 

and his blue eyes looked brightly out from un¬ 
der shaggy eyebrows. Many a scar marked his 
rugged face and bare arms and hands, but he 
held his head proudly yet, though the spear some¬ 
times trembled in his stiffening hands. 

The seax — a short, hooked broadsword or dag¬ 
ger, from which some writers tell us the Saxons 
derived their name — hung from his girdle, and 
indeed he was a fine figure of an old warrior. 

As he met the lads, a smile lighted his rugged 
face. He was fond, in his rough way, of the 
young Wolf’s cub and his friend, and was quite 
willing to give them a bit of wisdom now and then 
from his eighty years’ store of it. 

“ It is a good day for news,” he said. “ And for 
such news as comes to-day, most truly it is good.” 

“ Why so, father Elric ? ” asked young Wulf. 

“It is the day of our father Woden, the mover 
(Wodensday, Wednesday). To-day we divide the 
land anew, that no man may become so attached 
to his fields that he will not be ready to go out to 
new conquests ; for it is weak and unmanly to gain 
by sweat what you can win by blood. 


122 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

“ The blood of Woden flows in your veins, 
young Wulf, and it is time now that you should 
be going out to conquer new lands.” 

‘‘But why is this a good day for news, and 
what news?” eagerly asked the boy again. 

“ It is news that may concern you,” answered 
the old man, “ if you are the boy I take you to be. 
But your grandfather is the one who will tell it 
you. Wait until the moot court breaks up, and 
you will hear.” 

“Tell us about the other days, father Elric,” 
said Ella. 

“I know Thor’s day (Thursday),” cried Wulf, 
“ the day when the Thunderer lets fly his strong 
hammer at his foes.” 

“And Tuesday is Tyr’s day. I count him the 
bravest of them all,” continued old Elric. 

“ Why bravest ? ” asked the boys. 

“ Because he put his right hand in the wolf Fen- 
rir’s mouth as a hostage, while the gods chained 
him. And he did it knowing that when the chain 
proved too strong to be broken, Fenrir would bite 
his hand off. That was brave; the one-handed. 


The Story of Wulf 123 

god is he whom I worship. I was born on his 
day. 

“ But see, the court is breaking up. I must be 
going, and you too, my lads. Farewell, young 
Wolfs cub; don’t forget the race that bred you. 
You should be following the swan-road in a good 
war-keel before many winters more pass over your 
head.” 

“There are only three very brave days,” said 
Wulf to Ella, as they threw their arms over each 
other’s shoulders, and strode down towards the 
village, looking and feeling as much like warriors 
as they could. “ I shall take Wodensday for mine. 
Sunday is the sun’s, Monday the moon’s, Friday 
belongs to the smiling, gentle Friga, and Saturday 
is Seater’s, and brings peace and plenty. But I 
say war and plenty for me.” 

Nearing the scattered houses of the village, the 
boys separated, and Wulf took his way towards the 
home of his grandfather. 

The house was made of thick posts or logs,' 
joined together by boards; and in the turf-covered 
roof was a hole which served as a chimney. The 


124 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

doorposts were carved with strange characters. 
The boy could not read them. They were runes, 
and protected the household from harm ; for gods 
could understand the runes, and men would fear 
the sacred words and respect them. 

Wulf found his mother spinning beside the door. 
She had a welcome in her eyes for him as she 
stood at her rude wheel and drew out the woolen 
thread between her fingers. 

“ Thy grandfather has news for thee,” she said. 

“What is it, mother?” cried the boy; “am I 
going to war ? I am twelve years old, you know, 
and I have proved my strength already in fight.” 

The mother looked at him proudly. “You are 
like Sigebert, your father,” she said. “ It is well 
that you were born in camp, and cradled on a 
shield. You were but a baby when your father 
was brought home dead, covered with wounds, 
crowned with honor; and you did not shriek and 
cry when I laid you on his breast, and said to you, 
‘ It is for women to weep, for men to remember.’ ” 

“Yes, mother,” answered the boy gravely, “I 
remember.” 



THE SWAN-ROAD IS EVER THE ROAD TO GLORY 







































































































126 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

“ Go in to thy grandfather, now,” said the 
mother. “He will tell thee the news.” 

Old Erkennin had returned from the moot 
court, and sat before the smoldering fire; an old 
man with shaggy locks and keen eyes. He wore a 
woolen cloak or sagum fastened with a long thorn, 
and his tall spear stood in the corner within reach 
of his hand. 

The boy stood beside him, and the afternoon 
light streaming in at the open door — for window 
there was none — shone on his yellow hair and 
bright, young face. 

“Thy uncles, Hengist and Horsa, have been out 
upon the seas,” he said. “The swan-road is ever 
the road to glory. They send news that the Brit¬ 
ish shore is open to conquest. The wild Piets are 
swarming down upon the Britons, and it is a fine 
chance to go in, sword in hand, and the land shall 
be ours. Will you go with your uncles, my 
boy?” 

The boy sprang high in the air with a shout of 
delight. 

“ Will I go, grandfather? I will go, and not 


127 


The Story of Wulf 

come back till I have won new lands with my 
sword. My szvord! may I have one now ? I 
have been longing for it, grandfather. May I 
have it ? ” 

“ Your father went gayer into a fight than ever 
he did to a feast, and you are his own son,” said 
the old man proudly. 

“ To-morrow at sunrise we will try the omens, 
and, if the gods will it, you shall go.” 

The next morning, at sunrise, fresh twigs are 
cut from a tree, marked, and solemnly strewed 
upon a white cloth. Then old Erkennin, with 
invocation to Woden and the Fates, reaches out 
his hand and, picking up a twig, interprets the 
sign upon it. 

“ You will go, my boy,” he says joyfully. “ Go, 
and be a conqueror and a king. May the shield- 
maidens stand beside you in battle, and may your 
weird weave for you such a web as befits a noble 
youth. Remember that death is better for any 
man than a life of shame. It is only a coward 
who thinks he shall live forever.” 

So, in the presence of the freemen of the 


128 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

village, Wulf is equipped with shield and javelin; 
and his grandfather says to him, — 

“Now you are no longer a part of my house¬ 
hold, a child in your father’s home; you are a 
Saxon, a warrior. It may for some brief time be 
your lot to till the ground, and, if it be so, may 
our mother Hertha be good to you, and grant 
you plentiful harvests. It may be that, for a time, 
you shall gather fish from the sea, and seek the 
whale in the north, or the gannet among the 
rocks; but the chief duty of a man is to fight, 
and so to fight that no man can ever say ‘niding’ 
(coward) to him. Be always ready to attack one 
enemy, to face two, to retire only one step back 
from three, and never to retreat from less than 
four.” 

And then young Wulf joins the brave compan¬ 
ions who are to meet Hengist, and sail for the 
“Saxon shore” of Britain. 

It is a two days’ march through fen and forest 
to the seashore, where three keels await them,— 
long flat-bottomed boats, their oaken boards fas¬ 
tened together with ropes of bark and iron bolts. 


129 


The Story of Wulf 

Fifty oars and fifty pairs of strong arms drive 
each war-keel over the waves, and the white-horse 
banner floats over the horde of fierce warriors 
crowded upon their decks. 

Wulf is counted a “ companion ” of his uncle. 
He sits with him at meat, and listens with rapture 
to the bold tales of sea-robbery and battle; for 
Hengist has met Roman legions and long-haired 
Gauls as well as Britons. 

“ The Britons are weak,” he said one day. 
“ They are herding together in cities; no man 
dares to live alone in his own home, surrounded 
by his own fields. They are cowards. If we had 
them in our Saxon land, we should bury them in 
the mud, and cover them with hurdles, that no one 
might see their shame. Their priests teach them 
to read and to sing; they are making clerks of 
them. They will never own the land if they 
waste their lives in reading.” 

“But the singing is good,” said young Ida, 
whose name signified flame , as he stood near, 
sharpening his sword. 

“ No, the singing is not good. They have no 


130 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

battle songs. They sing dirges for the dead, and 
hymns. I want no such songs,” shouted Hengist, 
and he sprang to his feet, singing, — 

“My sword is my father, 

My shield is my mother, 

My ship is my sister, 

My horse is my brother.” 

And his comrades shook their long, yellow locks, 
and lifted their heads as they stood there on the 
deck of the “ Sea-horse,” and sang, or rather 
roared out, — 

“ Cheerly, my sea-cocks ! 

Crow, for the day-dawn; 

True heroes, troth-plighted, 

Together we’ll die.” 

When Hengist’s three keels touched British 
shores, King Vortigern sent down the Count of 
the Saxon shore to greet the strangers in his 
name, and ask whence they had come and 
wherefore. 

He heard with delight that the bold Saxons 
had brought their swords for his service. 

“ How shall I pay you?” he asked of Hengist. 


The Story of Wulf 131 

“ Land ! ” said Hengist. “ Land shall be my 
pay. I fight for love of fighting; but I serve 
you for land.” 

Once on shore, the Saxons were already at 
home. 

“ My plow is my sword, my treasure is my 
good right hand,” said Hengist. “And now that 
I have come I will stay, and my people shall 
plow many hides of British soil, and win treasures 
on many a battlefield.” 

Before setting out against Vortigern’s enemies, 
Wulf put his hands between the hands of his 
uncle, and took a solemn oath, “by oak, and ash, 
and thorn,” and by the great god Woden himself, 
that he would be Hengist’s faithful companion 
and serve him to the death. 

Then began their march. against the Piets, — 
the wild, painted men of the North. Through 
the fens and the forests they marched, and at last 
out on the grand, old Roman roads, — straetas 
(streets) the Saxons called them. And the boy 
wondered at the great walled cities, where the 
Britons lived, as the Romans had taught them. 


132 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

And now Wulf learned to fight,—to fight on 
at all odds, never to be turned back by defeat, 
never to acknowledge himself beaten ; to say to 
his victorious enemy: “ The victory is yours to¬ 
day ; it may be mine to-morrow. I will not give 
back. I stand where to-day’s fortunes have 
placed me. To-morrow I will go forward.” 

“ When the Piets are conquered we shall be ready 
for the Britons,” said Hengist. 

“But the Britons may also be ready for you,” 
suggested Ida. 

“ They will find it is ill work trapping an eagle. 
When they have caught him, it is often the safest 
thing to let him go again,” said Hengist proudly. 

And the banner of the white horse went ever 
forward. 

One day Hengist called the boy to come with 
him, as kinsman and companion, to found for them¬ 
selves a stronghold on British soil. And, taking 
a bull’s hide, he cut it round and round into one 
long strip, and with this thong of leather he en¬ 
compassed a rocky hill, and there they built a 
castle, and called it Thong castle. Strong bars of 


,'^JH ■ V 

The Story of Wulf 133 

oak across its doors, narrow slits in the stone walls 
for windows, it was a safe retreat in which to stand 
against British assaults; and, moreover, it was a 
sign that the land on every side was their own. 

The twelve-year-old boy is growing into a strong, 
young warrior, whose watchword is : “ Woe to those 
who cannot take care of themselves ! Woe to the 
weak! ” 

It is in the Isle of Thanet, in the southeastern 
part of what we call England, that the Saxons 
have made a home. There they have set up the 
banner of the white horse. There they have their 
moot hill, and hold their mpot court, as of old. 
And year by year their keels cross the sea, bring¬ 
ing their brothers and friends to join them. Among 
them comes Ella to meet Wulf again. Both boys 
have drawn swords in more than one battle; both 
love the roving life, the fortune of the day; both 
have learned that justice between man and man, 
adherence to one’s oath, and, above all, courage, 
mark a free-born man. And to be a free man is 
as good as to be a king. 

No reading nor writing for them ; no schools 


134 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

nor books. They study only out of the book of 
everyday life, and a pretty rough life it is, too. 

Few days or nights of peace, but always an 
enemy at hand to keep their fighting powers in good 
practice. Wulf has earned the right to wear his 
father’s sword, “ Brain-biter,” and Ella, too, loves 
and cherishes a sword to which he has given the 
name “Death-dealer.” 

They lie at night on the ground, or at best on a 
bed of rushes. They sit at the feast of boar’s flesh 
after the battle is over, and drink great horns of 
mead, and sing war songs. 

Sometimes they listen with wonder to the tales 
of the old gleeman, — tales of marvelous deeds of 
valor; tales of dwarfs and elves of the forest; of 
Beorn, the magic warrior, who could mutter runes 
that would stop short his enemy’s vessel in its 
course, in spite of a fair wind, and make the rower’s 
efforts of no avail, or could check an arrow mid¬ 
way in its flight. “ It were useless to fight against 
magic,” muttered the old gleeman. 

The gleeman had a book, — “ boc ” he called it, 
from the beech (boc) tree wood of which it was 


135 


The Story of Wulf 

made. A little wooden tablet you and I should 
call it, I think ; but to them it was a very valuable 
book, with a few strange words carved upon it. A 
thorn stood for th; ice meant i; oak a or ac; 
x, which looks to me like H turned sideways, 
meant hail; and x meant man. This is all I 
can tell you of their written language, but even 
this little was known only to a few. 

The king and the earls themselves could not 
write their names. They could only make some 
mark or sign for the name, and it is from that 
custom that we have learned to speak of signing 
our names. 

Paper was not made in those days . 1 A few 
pieces of parchment might be had whereon to 
write charters and other important deeds. All 
the books there were, were written in Latin, and 
Latin these Saxons did not understand; and yet 
they brought into our English language twenty- 
three thousand words. Four-fifths of the common 
words that we use in our everyday talk are 

1 Papyrus was in use long before, but not in that part of the 
world. 


136 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Anglo-Saxon words. All the home words, father, 
mother, brother, sister, child, house, sun, moon, 
day, night, and the days of the week, as you saw 
in the early part of this story,—all these and 
thousands more they have left us. 

This boy, Wulf, was our ancestor, yours and 
mine. It was because of him and his companions 
that Britain became England, for a part of the 
Saxons were called Angles, Engle-men, or English 
men. 

We no longer delight in war as they did, but 
they had many manly virtues which we may well 
thank them for bequeathing to us ; and how gentle 
manners began to grow up at last among warlike 
people, we may learn from Gilbert the page, who 
will one day become a knight. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE STORY OF GILBERT, THE PAGE, WHO WILL 
ONE DAY BECOME A KNIGHT 

“ Make me thy Knight , because I know, Sir King , 

All that belongs to Knighthood." 

The boys are at their lessons in the courtyard 
of the castle. I say “ at their lessons,” but you must 
not imagine them studying their books, or hard at 
work on some difficult question in arithmetic. 

No, the lesson they are learning on this bright 
September afternoon is one that boys of our time 
might call play, — and yet it is a pretty hard 
lesson too. 


37 







138 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Their master has set up for them a quintain, 
and Guy, and Walter, and Geoffrey, and Robert, 
and even little Hugh, are trying their skill by 
riding at it. 

Let us take a look at the quintain, for perhaps 
you have never seen one before. It is a rough 
figure of a man fastened by a pivot upon a post 
in such a way that it will easily swing round. It 
bears a club in one hand and in the other a shield 
held before it. 

Now watch young Geoffrey as he rides his pony 
gallantly, and, with lance in rest and head bent 
low, charges the quintain. 

See, he strikes fairly on the middle of the shield, 
and passing, wheels his pony and returns to the 
entrance of the courtyard. 

Then up comes Robert, and he too would gladly 
strike the shield; but it is not so easy to man¬ 
age both pony and lance at the same time. The 
blow falls on one side instead of in the middle, 
and instantly the quintain swings round and deals 
him a blow with the club as he passes. Even the 
pony seems to share the shame of this failure, 


139 


The Story of Gilbert 

and he and his young rider return with drooping 
heads to the end of the lists. You see it is not a 
very easy lesson after all, and it takes much prac¬ 
tice and patience to learn it. 

Up rides one boy after another, and with vary¬ 
ing fortunes they return and are ready to try 
again at their master’s call, till the red sunset 
lights up the tall towers of the castle, and the nar¬ 
row windows, — mere slits in the thick stone wall, 
— glitter like gems as they reflect* the light, for 
they have glass in them, a new and precious arti¬ 
cle which has just come into use in place of the 
oiled paper which formerly covered the window 
slits. 

The Lady Margaret comes to the castle door. 
She calls to her Walter, the page. 

“You have the eye of a hawk, Walter,” she 
says. “ Go to the battlement of the north tower, 
and see if you can spy the banners of my lord 
returning from the battle.” 

The boy bows gracefully and bounds up the 
narrow stone stairway that winds about within the 
thickness of the massive wall. He springs up 


140 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

stair after stair, and soon finds himself on the 
battlements of the north tower, looking far over 
field and forest towards the high road and the ford 
of the winding river. 

Suddenly out from the forest path just beside 
the ford he sees a glittering helmet, and the shim¬ 
mer of light upon lance and shield. 

“He comesj” cries the boy, waving his hand 
to the watchers below, and then, running quickly 
down, he drops on one knee at the feet of the 
lady, and says : “ Dear lady, my lord is already 
passing the ford of the white stones, and he will 
be here before the sunset light has faded.” 

The lady thanks him with a gracious smile, and 
bidding him go back to his companions, she turns 
to the steward and squire of the hall, and bids 
them prepare the feast, for the knights will be 
both faint and Weary. 

The boys loiter about the castle gate, listening 
for the bugle blast that shall announce the ap¬ 
proach of the lord of the castle, and presently a 
gay troop of knights on prancing horses, with pen¬ 
non on lance, breaks from the gloomy forest, and 



THE HEAVY DRAWBRIDGE IS SWUNG ACROSS THE MOAT 






























































































































































142 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

with a ringing bugle blast turns up the hill path 
that leads to the castle gate. 

The heavy drawbridge is swung across the 
moat; the barred portcullis is raised, and with 
jingling spurs and clashing shields the knights 
pass into the courtyard. 

Riding behind Sir Roland is a boy of twelve 
years ; on his saddlebow he carries his lord’s hel¬ 
met, and he watches with careful attention every 
word or gesture of Sir Roland, as if expecting 
some command. In a moment it comes. 

“Gilbert, take thou the English boy to thy 
master, Baldwin, and he will provide for him 
lodging, and all needful care.” 

And turning to a fair-faced, golden-haired boy, 
who rides at his side, he says to him: “ Go thou 
with Gilbert. The son of so valiant a father will 
find welcome and safety in my castle.” 

So the two boys turn their horses’ heads 
towards the side of the courtyard, where we have 
already seen Walter and Guy and the others 
charging the quintain. 

Gilbert conducts his companion to Baldwin, the 


M3 


The Story of Gilbert 

old squire, and presents him as Edward, son of Sir 
Richard Britto, a hostage for his father, who was 
yesterday taken prisoner by Sir Roland. 

Sir Richard had gone home to England to raise 
his ransom and had left his son as hostage for 
his own appearance here, as soon thereafter as 
the will of heaven will permit. 

Baldwin, the squire, receives the English lad 
kindly, and directs that he shall share Gilbert’s 
lodging at the top of the north tower, and 
then he bids the boys make ready to serve 
the meal. 

Walter and Geoffrey and Guy are already busy 
relieving the knights of their heavy armor, and 
the tables are laid in the long hall, which, now 
that daylight is fading, has been lighted with 
blazing torches. 

A long hall it is indeed. The walls are hung 
with tapestry, whereon are strange pictures of 
men and animals, towers and trees, castles and 
stag-hunts. Banners are grouped over the win¬ 
dows, and shields hang glittering in the torch¬ 
light ; the floor is strewn with sweet herbs, 


144 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

from which the foot presses out the fragrance 
as the knights come in with stately tread. 

A long table down the middle, and a shorter 
one across the upper end, on a slightly raised 
platform, are already loaded with dishes and 
flagons. A large thick slice of bread serves 
each guest as a plate, and a little crusty loaf, 
called a knight’s loaf, is placed beside his dish 
of soup. 

There are boar’s flesh and venison, and baked 
meats, and as the knights take seats in the 
order of their rank, their favorite dogs stretch 
themselves at their feet. 

The pages — many of them sons of these 
same knights — serve every one, pour the wine, 
carve the meats, and pass the dishes. 

Presently two damsels enter, carrying between 
them a silver dish, upon which rests a roasted 
peacock, gay in all its feathers and with out¬ 
spread, resplendent tail . 1 . 

They advance to the upper table, and there 

1 In preparing a peacock for the table, the skin is carefully 
removed, and, after the roasting, replaced. 


145 


The Story of Gilbert 

set the dainty dish before the lord of the castle ; 
and then the twanging of a harp is heard, and 
the old gray-haired minstrel begins to sing, and 
the feast is fairly begun. 

Gilbert and his companion have soon washed 
off the dust of their journey, and are ready to 
take their share of the service, while they listen 
with delight to the minstrel’s song, relating feats 
of arms of the knights of old, and ending with 
Sir Roland’s own brave victory of yesterday. 

After the feast is over, Gilbert is summoned 
by a gentle lady — Edith by name — whom he 
had chosen when he was but eight years old for 
his mistress, whom he would loyally serve for¬ 
ever. 

She asks him about the expedition from which 
he has just returned, and when he has told his 
tale, modestly omitting to mention himself at all, 
she says with a smile that brightens all her face: 
"And you, too, have acquitted yourself well. Sir 
Roland tells me that you pressed through many 
dangers to bring him a fresh lance when his own 
was broken, and that but for thee, my Gilbert, 


146 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

he would not have been able to take prisoner this 
English knight, Sir Richard Britto. It is good 
to be valiant amid dangers, but there is no real 
danger but the danger of being a coward.” So 
said the Lady Edith. 

The boy’s face glows with delight as he hears 
these words from his fair lady. 

“And bring me even now thy new comrade, 
the English hostage,” she says. And Gilbert, 
crossing the hall, finds the lad standing in the 
deep embrasure of the window, and listening, 
with a scowl on his brow, to the discourse of two 
knights who are recounting the events of the 
last few days. 

“He yielded, rescue or no rescue,” said one, 
“and the word of a knight is a bond not to be 
broken. And yet, I doubt not, his kinsmen will 
gather to his rescue; and in a week and a day, 
if not earlier, we must bar our gates and hold our 
own as best we may against Sir Everhard with 
two hundred lances at his back.” 

At this moment Gilbert touches the boy upon 
the shoulder, saying: “ My lady Edith calls for 


147 


The Story of Gilbert 

thee, — come,” and with a light step and the 
martial bearing of young knights the two boys 
return to the lady who awaits them. 

With gentle kindness she questions the little 
stranger about his home, and bids him welcome 
to the Castle of St. Claire. 

“ It may be that the fortunes of war will leave 
you with us for many months, and that your 
training as becomes the son of a knight be not 
allowed to languish, you shall exercise each day 
under the care of Baldwin, the squire, and you 
shall choose among the ladies of St. Claire a 
mistress whom you will serve.” 

“ I serve my lady mother,” answers the boy, 
with a touch of resentment in his tone. “It is 
she whom I love, and I will serve her before all 
others.” 

“Nay, be not rude. You will make but an 
ungentle knight, if you have no softer tone than 
that for a lady. You serve your lady mother 
from duty, but what lady will you serve for love ? 
See yonder lovely ladies who listen to the tales 
that the knights are telling. Choose, then, one 


148 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

among them to be your mistress while you abide 
with us; for how can your knightly training go 
on if you lack a mistress to smile upon your 
successes and admonish you when there is 
need ? ” 

Again the boy hesitates ; but, looking up, he 
sees the kindly eyes of the Lady Margaret fixed 
upon him with a look of pity, and he says to 
Gilbert: “ Lead me to the kind lady with the 
broidered robe. I will gladly serve her while I 
stay.” 

So Gilbert led him to Lady Margaret, who 
instantly understood the purpose of his coming, 
and sent him to lead to her side her favorite 
greyhound, that had strayed across the hall. 

But the feast is over; the knights are grouped 
about the hall. Young Sir Ranulf is stringing 
his lute, that he may sing to Lady Edith the 
little lay that he made in her honor as he rode 
through the greenwood. Old Sir Guy, too feeble 
now for warfare, is listening to every detail of the 
fight of yesterday, and asking: “ What news from 
the king’s court ? ” 


r 49 


The Story of Gilbert 

“The king,” replies Sir Gerard, “has ordered 
each nobleman to cause the high roads in his 
province to be guarded every day from sunrise 
to sunset; and if, by his neglect, robberies shall 
occur, he must make the loss good.” 

“It is a hard task he sets us,” adds Sir Ber¬ 
nard. “If a man must keep the highway safe, 
he will have little time for aught else.” 

The boys, who would gladly stay and listen, 
have been sent to their lodgings in the north 
tower, and while they sleep shall you and I 
ramble about this castle, their home, and become 
a little better acquainted with it ? 

All around it is a wide, deep moat or ditch, to 
be crossed only by a bridge which is drawn up 
and safely secured in the great arched gateway 
of the outer wall. 

If we sound our horn, and, announcing our¬ 
selves as friends, are allowed to cross the draw¬ 
bridge and enter the gateway, there is still the 
great, barred portcullis that can be suddenly let 
down to prevent our further entrance, if the 
warder so wills. 


150 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

But we are welcome guests and we soon find 
ourselves in the outer court, the place where the 
boys were practising with the quintain yester¬ 
day. 

Here on one side are stables for the horses, 
lodging for the yeomen and the squires, and 
room for saddling and mounting when the train 
of knights makes ready to ride out to battle or 
to tournament. 

Square towers guard the gateway and the 
corners of the walls, and the great stone battle¬ 
ments have many a slit or gutter down which 
boiling tar or melted lead may be poured upon 
a besieging enemy. 

The stone stairways wind with many a turn 
through the walls. If an enemy should succeed 
in crossing the moat, forcing the gate, and win¬ 
ning the outer court, still the great strong inner 
keep may be held, and every stair defended 
with sword and dagger and battle-axe. For these 
are times when each man’s home is a castle, — 
a fort to be held against neighbors who may 
any day prove themselves enemies. 


The Story of Gilbert 151 

You would not need to live in this castle 
many months to witness many a brave defense 
against enemies who are also brave. 

But we want to know something of the com¬ 
mon daily life of Gilbert and his companions, 
and so we must go with them in the early morn¬ 
ing into the little chapel of the castle, where 
the priest reads the matin service in Latin, and 
lords and ladies and pages kneel upon stone 
floor or velvet cushions and repeat their Pater 
Noster and their Ave Maria. These prayers 
have been taught to the boys by their fair ladies, 
who bid them always reassure themselves in time 
of danger by the thought, “ For God and for my 
lady,” and then do nobly the best they can. 

Chapel service and breakfast being over, the 
knights and ladies will go hawking by the river, 
and Lady Edith calls upon Gilbert to bring her 
gray falcon. The boy comes quickly, and perched 
upon his wrist, with scarlet hood and collar of 
gold, is the gray falcon, or goshawk. 

The ladies are mounted on their palfreys, 
and, with the knights on their gay horses, come 


152 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

prancing over the drawbridge, and turn down 
the bridle path towards the river. 

They pass the field where the peasant boys are 
gathering in the grain ; and the big oven of stone, 
where the women come to bake their bread. They 
come at last to the mill beside the stream, where 
the peasants must come to grind their corn. For 
every peasant must bake in his lord’s oven and 
grind in his lord’s mill, as well as till his lord’s 
fields; and fight against his lord’s enemies, if so 
brave a knight should ever have need of the serv¬ 
ices of so humble a vassal. 

The peasant boys are dressed in gowns or blouses 
fastened round the waist with a strip of leather; 
their legs are bare, and they wear clumsy shoes 
of wood or of coarse leather. Their matted hair 
hangs uncombed and shaggy about their faces. 
You would hardly think they were of the same 
race as the pretty boy pages in their gay dresses, 
who ride or run beside their lords and ladies, 

“ To go a hawking by the river with gray goshawk on hand.” 

I am sure you never went “a hawking,” so I will 
stop to tell you of this morning’s sport. 


i53 


The Story of Gilbert 

As the merry troop near the river, a long-legged 
heron, who was standing quietly fishing for his 
breakfast among the reeds near the bank, is startled 
by the sound of laughter and the jingling of bridle 
bells. He spreads his wings and rises from his 
breakfast table to see what is the matter. No 
sooner is he in sight, than Lady Edith waves her 
white hand to Gilbert; he slips the little scarlet 
hood from the falcon’s head, and away darts the 
strong bird of prey, up, up, up, while lords and 
ladies rein in their horses and sit watching his 
flight. See him go! Why, he has fairly passed 
the heron, and still he flies higher. Yes, he did 
that to “get the sky of him,” that is, to get above 
him, between him and the sky. You understand 
it perfectly when you see him, the next minute, 
pounce down, down, with a terrible swoop, upon 
the heron, and kill it with one blow of strong claws 
and beak. 

“Sound your lure, Gilbert,” cries Lady Edith. 
And Gilbert lifts the pretty lure that hangs by his 
side, and sounds a long, cleai whistle upon it. 
The falcon turns instantly, and darts back to him, 


154 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

knowing that the whistle means for him praise and 
petting, and some dainty bit of food as a reward 
for his good hunting ; and then he is chained to 
his perch, and hooded again, until another bird 
rises. 

Many a bird do the falcons bring down on that 
bright morning, and when the merry party turns 
back towards the castle, the knights sound their 
hunting horns, the warder lets down the draw¬ 
bridge, and they all troop in as gayly as they 
went out. 

In a corner of the outer court the boys find the 
old armorer at work. He is singing to himself as 
he sharpens a sword or fits a lance point, and the 
boys love to watch and to listen. 

“ That is my father’s sword, is it not, Golan ? ” 
asked Gilbert. 

“Yes,” answered the armorer, “that is your 
father’s sword, ‘ Morglay.’ Can you read, my lad ? ” 

“Yes,” answered Gilbert, “Father Pierre has 
taught me to read from the psalter.” 

“Read then,” says the armorer, “the motto on 
this sword, for it will one day be your own.” 


155 


The Story of Gilbert 

The boy spelled out with some difficulty the 
words inscribed on the sword hilt, but finally he 
lifted his head proudly and read out clearly, “ For 
God and my right.” 

“ This sword has done good service for many a 
year,” went on the old man. “ Its blade has sent 
many a Paynim to his death, and its hilt has served 
as a cross for many a death prayer. 

“ I was beside your father when he was made 
knight-banneret. That was before you were born. 
The king was about to give battle to the English ; 
your father rode into camp with a hundred lances 
behind his back, and his pennon floating from his 
lance. ‘Sire,’ he said, presenting the pennon to 
the king, 9 1 place my pennon at your service ’; 
and the king gave it back to him, cut into a square 
banner, bidding him henceforth carry a banner, 
instead of a pennon, ever foremost in battle.” 

But the boys must not linger to talk or listen, 
for already the tables are spread in the long hall. 

After dinner Lord Roland challenges Lord Percy 
to a game of chess, and while Guy, the page, goes 
to arrange the board, Gilbert and English Edward 


156 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

are called out upon the balcony to attend the ladies, 
who have gathered round the old minstrel and 
asked for a tale of true love and honor. 

The old man touches his harp, and, lifting his 
face, sits listening for a moment to the soft sounds 
that his fingers awaken among the strings ; then a 
smile lights his face and he begins to sing. 

The song is of a fair lady shut up in a strong 
tower and hidden away from the knight whom she 
loves, and of her rescue by the knight, who braves 
all dangers for her sake, — a sweet, old story, 
which I must not stop to tell you here, but you 
can find a hundred like it among the old chivalric 
tales. 

The ladies sigh at the sad parts, and smile at the 
brave deeds, and when the song is ended, they give 
the old man a mantle and a piece of silver, and 
wine in a silver flagon. 

“ Now tell me, young Edward,” says Lady 
Margaret, “ have you in England songs like this, 
and minstrels who sing so sweet ? That you have 
brave knights and fair ladies we already know. 
Perhaps you can yourself touch the lute, and sing 


The Story of Gilbert 15 7 

some song of love, or of deeds of arms. Bring 
hither your lute, Walter, and let the young stranger 
sing to us.” 

“ As you command me, dear lady,” answers the 
boy, “ I gladly obey.” And after a little prelude 
upon the lute, he began, — 

“ It was an English ladye bright, 

(The sun shines fair on Carlisle wall) 

And she would marry a Scottish knight, 

For Love will still be lord of all.” 

“ Then love is lord of all even across the seas,” 
Lady Margaret says, as the boy ends his song. 

“ Listen now, dear youths, for I would have you 
learn from the minstrel’s tale the rule of a true 
knight. Lay it to heart, that it may serve you in 
your need. 

“ A true knight should have his feet steady, his 
hands diligent, his eyes watchful, and his heart 
resolute.” 

“ And all for the service of God and his lady,” 
added Lord Roland, who at that moment stepped 
upon the balcony. 

For a few days life goes on gayly at St. Claire. 


158 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

One day there is hawking, another hunting. The 
boys practise charging the quintain, and learn that 
to break lance against the pommel of a saddle is 
greater shame than to have stayed out of the con¬ 
test altogether; so day by day their charge grows 
surer and steadier upon the shield, and they long 
to prove themselves at some grand tourney. 

One morning a messenger rides up to the castle 
gate and delivers a letter with a ponderous seal, 
which Gilbert carries to Lord Roland. 

The knight looks at the seal, and breaks it care¬ 
fully, and, after much study of the letter, summons 
the priest to read it to him, saying, “ I am no 
clerk.” 

“The holy bishop is journeying through the 
province, and, with Abbot Adam and his com¬ 
pany, will honor you by dining with you to-day. 
He also wills that all the youths of your house¬ 
hold, who are of twelve years or over, be ready to 
take before him the oath prescribed by the Council 
of Clermont.” 

Thus ran the letter; and it caused great bustle 
in the castle, both in kitchen and in hall. Espe- 


159 


The Story of Gilbert 

daily were the pages drilled in their duties, that 
they might serve the bishop with both grace and 
reverence. 

Before noon the stately train enters the castle 
and receives a courteous welcome from its lord and 
lady. 

The floor of the long hall has been freshly 
strewn with fragrant grasses, and among the 
costly dishes provided for the dinner is a roasted 
swan, which Gilbert, as the best carver, is allowed 
to serve. Then there are loaves of fine wheaten 
bread, and russet apples, baked pears, and peaches 
heaped upon silver dishes, and figs from Malta. 

In the train of the bishop and the abbot, Guy 
and Walter have already spied three boys, two of 
them not more than eight years old, dressed like 
themselves, in tunics of gay colors, and with beau¬ 
tiful curling hair. The other boy, of perhaps 
twelve years, has his hair closely cut, and wears a 
gray blouse of the simplest pattern and coarsest 
texture, and yet he does not look like the peasant 
boys whom we saw at work in the fields. He is, 
it is true, the son of a peasant, the boy Suger, 


160 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

whom the good monks have taken into the abbey, 
that they may teach him ; for the lad shows a fine 
head for reading and psalm singing. He can not 
only write with the stylus on waxen tablets, but 
he can copy with a pen on parchment, and he is 
kept busy many hours of each day copying books 
in beautiful red and blue letters, while the monk, 
Stephen, in the next cell, takes from him each 
page and decorates it with delicately drawn pic¬ 
tures of saints and angels. 

It is a wonderful thing to work on these books. 
They are so rare that few people own even one of 
them, and you must know that there were, in 
those times, no printed books like those which 
you read every day, for the art of printing had 
not yet been invented. 

Suger had accompanied the holy abbot on this 
journey that he might attend the two young boys, 
Henry and Geoffrey, twin sons of Lord Eustace 
of Boulogne. The bishop is their uncle, and the 
boys are themselves, in part, the cause of his visit 
to the castle. He had received them a week 
before from their father, with the request that, if 


The Story of Gilbert 161 

he were traveling southward, he would place the 
children with his old friend and brother in arms, 
Roland of St. Claire, that in his castle, and under 
the care of the priests, the squire, and, most of all, 
the ladies who were teaching his own son, they 
might begin their chivalric education. 

“ It is a shame to do nothing but eat, and drink, 
and waste time,” their father had said. “ The lads 
are eight years old; let them at least learn the 
duty of obedience and service, and nowhere can 
they learn it better than at St. Claire.” 

All this the bishop is telling to Lord Roland, 
who would gladly have taken the boys to please 
their uncle, and still more gladly accepts the charge 
for love of his old brother in arms, Lord Eustace. 

“And now,” says the bishop, “since the holy 
Council of Clermont has so decreed, let all the 
pages who are of twelve years or over, repair to 
the chapel, and there take the first sacred oath 
that their calling requires of them.” 

Gilbert and Guy and Walter and Geoffrey, the 
son of Count Charles, are accordingly summoned 
to the chapel, and, kneeling there before the 


162 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

bishop, they repeat reverently the promise to 
defend widows and orphans; to protect women ; 
to do all that may lie in their power to render 
travel safe, and to destroy tyranny. 

And the bishop gives them his blessing, and 
prays that by God’s grace, they may have strength 
to keep this oath. 

It was a strange promise, you think, for a boy 
of twelve. But when it was thought necessary 
for even such young boys to take a sacred oath to 
protect women and orphans, you can see that 
women and orphans must have been in great need 
of protection. If even boys were made responsi¬ 
ble for rendering travel safe, then indeed the high 
roads must have been full of danger; and if every 
boy is to destroy tyranny, tyrants must have been 
more common than they are in our own days. 

Hardly have the bishop and his train left the 
next morning, when a rider in hot haste reaches 
the castle with news that Sir Everhard Breakspear, 
with more than two hundred lancers at his back, 
is riding up from the north ford, and will reach 
the castle in less than an hour. 


The Story of Gilbert 163 

No hawking nor hunting that day, but each 
knight looks to his arms, and each has his place 
assigned him for the defense. 

There is a hasty council held in the hall, and 
it is decided that word must be sent to the neigh¬ 
boring castle of Montain that Sir Ever hard Break- 
spear and the Free Companions are abroad, and 
help is needed at St. Claire. 

“ And who shall bear our message ? ” asks Lord 
Percy. 

“ Gilbert, the page, is to be trusted with the 
message. He is light of foot, or safe to swim his 
horse through the stream, if need be. Let him 
take the little jennet, and go without delay,” said 
Lord Roland. 

When Gilbert is told of his errand, it seems to 
him that an opportunity has come for the first ful¬ 
fillment of his oath; for even the boys know how 
the Free Companions are making it unsafe to ride 
unarmed, or even well armed, by day or night 
through the whole province. 

So, mounted on the little jennet, — a light horse 
with a light burden,—the boy is let out at the 


164 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

postern gate, which is quickly closed and barred 
behind him. 

As our story is of Gilbert, rather than of the 
castle, we will follow him on his dangerous ride, 
and leave the knights to defend their stronghold 
with great stones, boiling lead and pitch, and many 
a crossbow bolt, and lance, until succor shall 
arrive. 

Creeping through the edge of the forest, the 
boy finds his way unnoticed, but presently he 
hears upon the high road the trampling of many 
hoofs, and, forcing his horse into a thicket, he 
watches the mailed horsemen, that, with glittering 
lance, and spur on heel, make a gallant show as 
they press forward on the road to St. Claire. 

“ Quiet, my beauty,” he whispers to his horse, 
as he pats his neck. “ Quiet! We will outwit 
them yet; but let them pass this time.” And 
finally, assuring himself that the last laggard of 
the train has really passed, he takes the highway 
and rides fast towards the castle of Montain. 

The sun has set and the September twilight is 
fast deepening into night, when from the forest 


The Story of Gilbert 165 

road at his right comes a black horse bearing a tall 
knight in armor. His head is covered only with 
the light bacinet, but at his saddle-bow hang a 
heavy mallet and a battle-axe, and from his long 
lance floats a silken pennon. Behind him rides a 
squire, carrying his shield and helmet. 

“ Whither so fast, young page ? ” he cries to the 
boy, who, doubtful whether to regard the stranger 
as friend or foe, inclines to urge his horse to a 
quicker pace. 

“ To do my lord’s will,” replies Gilbert discreetly. 

“ And what may be your lord’s will ? ” asks the 
knight. 

“ I carry a message to the Lord of Montain, 
but it is my lord’s message, not mine. I have 
no right to give it to another.” 

“That is loyally spoken, and I will not ask of 
you what you have no right to give, but tell me 
now, have you seen a band of free lances pass 
this way ? ” 

“ That I have,” replied the boy. “ Sir Everhard 
Breakspear, I think, and two hundred of the Free 
Companions.” 


166 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

“And which way did they go?” 

“Northward, towards St. Claire.” 

“And the castle they attack will need a stout 
defense,” said the knight; “ but I would I were 
there to help defend it; for I have made a vow to 
rest neither day nor night until I have avenged 
upon the Free Companions the death of my 
brother in arms.” 

As Gilbert hears these words he feels sure that 
the knight is a friend, so he frankly tells that he is 
bound to Montain to seek help against these same 
free lances for his lord, Sir Roland, besieged in St. 
Claire. 

“Then, my brave boy,” says the knight, “I, 
who am a knight errant, seeking adventure and 
honor in all places where danger leads me, will 
also go with you to Montain, and there join 
such succors as may go to Sir Roland’s assist¬ 
ance.” 

And Gilbert gladly accepts the protection of the 
unknown knight, and is about to take his place 
behind the squire when the knight says : “ Nay, 
but ride beside me, that I may ask of thee tidings 


167 


The Story of Gilbert 

of thy lord and of the Lady Margaret, too, for 
of old I have fought beside Sir Roland in the Holy 
Land, and the fair Lady Margaret has made me 
welcome after battle, and herself dressed for me 
this sword-cut across my cheek.” 

They reach Montain without further adventure, 
and the wandering knight blows such a blast upon 
his horn that the warder opens the wicket, and 
demands quickly, — 

“Who comes thus after nightfall to the castle 
of Montain ? ” 

“A messenger from St. Claire,” answers the 
knight, “ and a knight errant and old companion of 
Roland of St. Claire and Fitz-Hamo of Montain.” 

Then the drawbridge is let down, and the travel¬ 
ers ride into the courtyard where the flaring torch¬ 
light shines on many a shield and spear. 

Lord Robert Fitz-Hamo comes out from the 
dark arched doorway to welcome his guests, and 
the knight thrusts forward young Gilbert. 

“ Do thine errand, my lad,” he says ; “ a faithful 
messenger has the first right to speak his lord's 
message.” 


168 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

“ Lord Roland of St. Claire greets thee by me,” 
said the boy to Fitz-Hamo, “ and bids me summon 
you, by the vows of friendship which bind you to 
him, to come as quickly as may be to his assist¬ 
ance, for Sir Everhard Breakspear, with two hun¬ 
dred lances, lays siege to St. Claire, for the rescue 
of his kinsmarr; the traitor, Sir Tristan.” 

“I will come,” cries Fitz-Hamo; “to-morrow’s 
dawn shall see me on the way, with a hundred 
good lances behind me. 

“ And now, my old comrade,” he exclaims, turn¬ 
ing to the knight, “thou art thrice welcome, — as 
my friend and comrade in many a fight with the 
Saracens, as my guest for to-night, and my com¬ 
panion for to-morrow. 

“We will spend the night in preparation, and 
this boy, who has been a faithful messenger, shall 
have rest and good cheer, that he may return with 
us to-morrow.” 

I would gladly tell you of the speedy journey 
next day; and how, reaching the woods of St. 
Claire at nightfall, Gilbert left his horse, and, with 
swift, stealthy step, passed through the camp of 


169 


The Story of Gilbert 

the besiegers, and reached the little postern gate, 
gained admittance, and laid before Sir Roland the 
mode of attack that his friends had planned. In 
the morning, the besiegers heard the shout of 
“ Montain ! Montain ! ” in their rear, just as the 
castle gates were thrown open for a sudden sally 
of knights, shouting, “ St. Claire ! St. Claire ! ” 

But all this will not much concern our boys. 
You would rather hear how they went the next 
month to the great tournament at Chalons, where 
they did homage to the king; and, besides seeing 
much gallant play with lance and sword, carried 
many a ribbon or broidered scarf from fair lady to 
brave knight, and served at many a feast in silken 
pavilion. 

And you will gladly hear how Sir Richard Britto 
came to St. Claire, true to his promise, and found 
his young hostage, Edward, safe and happy among 
the other pages, and kindly cared for by the Lady 
Margaret. How Sir Roland ransomed Sir Richard 
for ten thousand crowns, and how Sir Richard took 
the boy home to his lady mother, whom he loved ; 
and how, in the long winter evenings, Edward told 


170 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

tales to his brothers of Castle St. Claire, and his 
companions there. 

You can very well see how Gilbert will one day 
himself become a knight; have his sword blessed 
by the priest; watch his armor all night in the 
church, and receive the accolade (a blow of the 
sword upon his shoulder) from which he rises 
Sir Gilbert. 

Then he will set out to do deeds of valor, and to 
win renown, and the right to emblazon his white 
shield with some emblem of his victories. He is a 
more gentle boy than Wulf, and to the desire to 
be a brave knight in battle he adds the wish to be 
a courteous knight, not only to every woman and 
helpless child, but alike to friend and foe. 



THE STORY OF ROGER, THE ENGLISH LAD, WHO 
LONGED TO SAIL THE SPANISH MAIN 


“ To give place for wandering is it 

That the world was made so wide.” 


“ I saw three ships come sailing in, 

On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, 
I saw three ships come sailing in, 

On Christmas Day in the morning. 

“ Pray whither sailed those ships all three ? 
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, 
Pray whither sailed those ships all three ? 
On Christmas Day in the morning. 






172 


The Road from Long Ago to Now 

“Oh, they sailed into Bethlehem, 

On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, 
Oh, they sailed into Bethlehem, 

On Christmas Day in the morning. 

“And all the bells on earth shall ring, 

On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, 
And all the souls on earth shall sing, 

On Christmas Day in the morning. 

“ Then let us all rejoice amain, 

On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day, 
Then let us all rejoice amain, 

On Christmas Day in the morning.” 


So sang the boys, standing on the little green 
before the rector’s door, just as the Christmas 
morning sunshine touched the old church tower, 
hung thick with ivy. And the rector, in his white 
wig and thick woolen wrapper, came out into the 
porch to give them his Christmas blessing and 
kindly wishes in return for their carol. 

Yesterday these boys had helped to strew the 
church floor with rushes, and then they had pulled 
with a will on the Yule log that Jonas and Giles 
were hauling in from the woods for the grand 
Yule blaze at evening. 


i 73 


The Story of Roger 

And they had searched the woods for mistletoe 
to hang from the broad beam that crossed the 
ceiling of the sitting room. But when their sister 
Alice came in she said : “ Hang it in the doorway, 
where all must pass under it.” 

You see there were merry Christmases in those 
days, even if there were no stockings to be hung, 
nor Christmas trees to be decked out with candles 
and gifts. 

And after a merry Christmas eve, the boys were 
up before the Christmas sun, to sing their carol 
at the rector’s door, and then go to morning service 
in the ivy-covered church before beginning their 
sports. 

Among these boys was Roger Barker, the mer¬ 
chant’s son, —a tall, strong lad of twelve years old. 

As he sings, with his clear, young voice, of the 
ships that come sailing in, he is not thinking so 
much of Bethlehem and Christmas blessings as of 
the ships that he watches, day after day, as they 
sail in or out of Plymouth harbor, bound now to 
Spain, or Africa, or again to the far-away Ameri¬ 
can shores. For all this boy’s heart is upon the 


174 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

sea, and even the words of his Christmas carol 
have carried him far away from church and rector 
and schoolmates, to some wild, adventurous voy¬ 
age, far, far away westward. 

He is a merchant’s son. His father’s ships 
have brought velvets, silks, and cloth of gold from 
the Levant, perfumes and spices from the East 
Indies, and furs from Russia. And it was only 
last week that the little bark Dainty arrived from 
South America, that wonderful new world, with a 
cargo of sugar and tobacco, and of batatas (pota¬ 
toes) for planting in the spring; for Sir Walter 
Raleigh has wisely said that this goodly vegetable, 
as sweet as a chestnut, and nourishing withal, may 
grow in English and Irish soil as well as in the 
New World. 

Do you realize that among all the six boys whose 
stories we have heard, not one has ever heard of 
America ? Roger is the first. No marvel that it 
is a wonderland to him. 

Each morning he takes his satchel of books and 
his slate, and goes to school; but he longs to 
change his scholar’s cap and gown for a sailor’s 


The Story of Roger 175 

jacket and loose trousers, and be off to discover 
new worlds, to fight the Spaniards, and to bring 
home pearls and gold and honors. 

Should you like to go with this unwilling scholar 
and take a peep into his school? See how the 
boys flock in and take their seats on the long 
wooden benches, much hacked and worn, but good 
enough ; for boys in those days were not used to 
comfort and ease, either in school or at home. 

See that row of little fellows with their horn 
books, studying their reading lessons. 

I wish the little children whom I see to-day 
learning to read from primers made attractive by 
pretty pictures could see a horn book, the primer 
from which Roger had learned to read, and which 
his little brother is studying now. 

As you can’t see one, I must try to describe it 
for you. It was a single printed leaf, with the alpha¬ 
bet in large and small letters, a few columns of mono¬ 
syllables, and, below, the Lord’s Prayer. This leaf, 
lest it should be torn, was set in a little wooden frame, 
and it was covered with a thin slice of horn, — 

“To save from fingers wet the letters fair.” 


176 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

It had a handle in which was a hole for a string, 
that it might hang from the belt or round the neck. 

At the beginning of the alphabet was a cross, 
from which the children came to call their alpha¬ 
bets, and indeed the horn book itself, the “ Christ 
Cross Row,” or “ Criss Cross Row.” So these 
little fellows, if you ask them what they are doing, 
will probably tell you that they are learning their 
“ Criss Cross Row.” 

Upon the master’s desk stands the hour-glass 
by which the lesson hours are to be regulated, and 
at the desk sits the master, with cane ready to 
punish the slightest fault or failure with a blow ; for 
most boys had their lessons flogged into them, and 
took this mode of learning as a matter of course. 

Here Roger studies grammar and reading and 
writing, and Latin always and before all other 
studies, as most needed for a well-taught man. 
The time has come, at last, when a merchant’s son 
may have learning as well as a gentleman’s son. 

For books he has, first, “A grammar set forth 
by King Henrie eighth, of noble memory, and con¬ 
tinued in the time of Edward sixth.” 


i 77 


The Story of Roger 

For her gracious Majesty the Queen has pro¬ 
claimed that “ this grammar, and none other, shall 
be taught by every schoolmaster.” 

Then he has already begun to read in Latin 
verse the noble deeds of Queen Elizabeth, a school 
book from which he is to learn not only Latin, but 
also loyalty , that first and greatest lesson for every 
Englishman. 

Two years ago, having finished the horn book, 
he had slowly and toilsomely read through “The 
Seven Wise Masters,” and having by that means 
learned to read any simple story in English, he has 
made the most of the few story-books that have 
come in his way. 

He can tell you the tales of King Arthur and 
his knights; and “ Sir Bevis of Southampton/’ 
“Adam Bel,” “ Clym o’ the Clough,” and “Wil¬ 
liam of Cloudsley,” are as familiar to him as are 
the stories of Robin Hood; for all these merry 
tales he has heard at the May Day revels ever 
since he was old enough to dance round the May- 
pole. 

His arithmetic he will have to learn by hard 


178 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

experience; and his geography he will pick up 
from every sailor that comes into port. 

Roger does not greatly delight in the study of 
Latin. He says to himself, though he does not 
dare to say it to his father: “ Sir Francis Drake 
never studied Latin, and he is the greatest man in 
all England. Will studying Latin teach me to sail 
round the world as he has done ? ” 

Roger’s elder bi other, John, has himself sailed 
round the world with Drake, and is even now gone 
on another voyage to the Spanish Main with his 
adored captain; and the one thought and hope of 
the younger brother is to do likewise. He would 
far rather linger about the wharves and watch the 
shipping than join in any sport ; for he loves all 
craft that sail the seas, and whether it be a wine- 
brig from Bordeaux, a hoy from the Scheldt, or 
merely a Plymouth smack fishing the Channel for 
herring, he watches the sails out of sight, and his 
fancy follows them far beyond the horizon. 

But better than Iceland fishing fleet, or wine- 
brig, or Flushinger, is the sight of a ship fitted out 
by some gallant gentlemen for a venture to the 


179 


The Story of Roger 

New World, or a brush with the Spaniards on 
the seas which they have proudly christened 
“the Spanish Main.” But why Spanish? 

We may well say, as did the French king when 
he heard their boastful claim, “ I should like to 
see father Adam’s will, before I will believe that 
the sea belongs to the Spaniards.” 

When Roger was a little lad, eight years old, 
he saw the Golden Hind come into port. The 
Golden Hind, hardly bigger than many a pleasure 
yacht that you have seen, which, under Drake’s 
bold command, had felt its way through the 
Straits, 1 across the wide Pacific to the East Indies, 
and home by way of Cape of Good Hope, bring¬ 
ing gold-dust, silver, pearls, emeralds, and dia¬ 
monds taken from his prize, the great Spanish 
galleon, that sailed once a year from Lima to 
Cadiz. 

And he had listened with wonder and admira¬ 
tion to his brother’s tales of Indians and tropical 
fruits, spices, and gold and pearls; and, always 

1 The Straits of Magellan were usually spoken of as “ the 
Straits.” 


i 8 o The Road from Long Ago to Now 

and everywhere, mixed in with every story, the 
cruelties of the Spaniards, who were claiming for 
themselves seas, continents, and islands, and con¬ 
quering the helpless natives with severity past 
telling. 

And Spain has even insolently forbidden English¬ 
men to cross the Atlantic Ocean, for was not the 
New World discovered by Columbus and taken 
possession of for the King of Spain ? 

Oh ! how this boy’s heart leaps up when he 
thinks of it; for he has been taught, as you all 
well know, that the sea is a free roadway for all 
the nations of the earth. 

Roger has been born in a wonderful time. I 
almost wish I could have lived in it myself; for 
there is his old grandfather sitting in the great oak 
chair in the chimney corner, who can tell him truly 
that, when he was a boy, no sailors had dared sail 
far out of sight of land, lest they should come to 
the edge of the world and fall over. “ For who then 
believed there was anything but pilchards to be 
found west of the Land’s End ? ” said the old 


man. 


The Story of Roger 181 

And now it seemed as if the old world itself 
was longing to move westward to reach the new, 
so many were the gallant captains and the brave 
sailors who faced dangers in unknown seas and 
among unknown savages, and liked nothing better 
than what they called “a brush with the Span¬ 
iards,” and a chance to fall in with the plate (gold 
and silver) fleet on its way from South America 
to Spain. 

So you see the boy’s mind must needs be full 
of the sea and the Spaniards, and you do not 
wonder that I have called him, in the title of this 
chapter, " the boy who longed to sail the Spanish 
Main.” 

But you ought to know something more of him 
besides this great longing, which, I promise you, 
will one day be gratified. So I will tell you some 
of the common facts of his daily life, what he 
wears, and eats, and drinks, and how he lives. 

How odd his cloth stockings would look to you, 
and his scholar’s cap and gown, compared to your 
own trim suits ; but knitted or woven stockings 
were so uncommon in those days that the queen 


182 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

herself had just received a present of her first pair, 
and she was so pleased with them that she resolved 
for the future to wear no more cloth stockings. 

He sees the fine gentlemen in the streets, with 
their velvet hats and feathers fastened with clasps 
of gold and jewels; the long, curling lovelock 
tied with ribbon, and the rose behind the ear; the 
trunk hose; the velvet tunic with slashed sleeves 
and lace ruffles, and swords by their sides. 

And every day, on his way to school, he passes 
the barber’s shop of Walter, the lovelocker, and 
that of Nicholas the tailor at the sign of the 
Needle; and he sees the shopmen, with goods 
displayed, crying to the passers-by: “ What do ye 
lack ? ” 

He meets the farmers’ sons in their russet 
clothes, and knows well that the law allows them 
to wear no other; and that, if a farmer or trades¬ 
man should cover his head with a velvet cap, the 
law would quickly take it off him. 

When his father has occasion to go out of an 
evening, he wears, if the streets are muddy, his 
pattens, made of ash-wood rimmed with iron, and 


83 


The Story of Roger i 

a servant lad runs before him with a lantern, for 
the streets are neither paved nor lighted, nor over¬ 
safe from robbers. 

At his father’s table there are pewter plates 
instead of the wooden ones which his grandfather 
used, and the pretty wooden bowls of bird’s eye 
maple are rimmed with silver; but there are no 
forks to eat with, “ which is to be regretted,” says 
a foreigner, writing of those days in England, 
“since all men’s fingers are not equally clean.” 

On the table we see good roast beef and mut¬ 
ton and venison, but a potato is a rare luxury. 
Roger has tasted it but once in his life. 

There is plenty of milk, but neither tea nor 
coffee, for, as yet, these drinks have never been 
heard of in England, and great cans of ale are on 
the table at breakfast, dinner, and supper, — supper , 
not tea, of course, for no one would know what 
you meant if you should invite him to tea. 

His father’s house has its second story project¬ 
ing over the street, thus making the upper rooms 
larger and lighter than the lower ones. 

In the upper front room stands a great chest 


184 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

shaped like a toy Noah’s ark. It is made of oak 
wood, and is already dark with age, for it has 
belonged to his father’s father, and perhaps to 
ancestors still more remote. It is the family 
treasure chest, and holds many a goodly cloth, 
many a jewel and silver cup, rich with Spanish 
workmanship. And there are Spanish dollars in 
it too, for Spain supplies the whole trading world 
with current coin. 

If our boy would know what time it is, he runs 
out to the old sundial that stands on the terrace, 
and throws its shadow upon a circle marked in 
clock-fashion. He has indeed heard of watches, 
and seen one at a distance, in the hands of a 
gentleman of the court, who stopped the other 
day at the Blue Lion tavern, to rest himself and 
his horses after his hard ride from London. 

The Blue Lion itself would be a curiosity to 
you and me, with its great, swinging signboard, 
whereon is painted a wondrous blue lion, such as 
no man has ever seen alive, and its bustling land¬ 
lord brewing a tankard of sack for his noble 
guest. 


The Story of Roger 185 

Roger takes occasion to pass the Blue Lion as 
often as he can on his way to and from school, for 
many is the gallant gentleman, or the sturdy sea 
captain, that may be seen sitting in its bay window, 
and talking of bold adventures, or Spanish sea fight, 
or of trade with Cathay. Search your whole map 
over and you will not find the name Cathay; for 
what was then called Cathay is now called China. 

Telling you to search your maps reminds me 
of the maps that Roger has seen. Never a map 
of the whole world, — those eastern and western 
hemispheres so familiar to you, — and only once, 
a strange sort of map of Africa, which a ship¬ 
master was exhibiting at the Blue Lion to some 
of his friends. 

It was a copy of a curious chart made by a 
seaman who had been pilot for brave Christopher 
Columbus, and on it he had drawn castles and 
ships, strange men and beasts, and seacoasts 
and rivers so oddly intermixed, that one needs 
the carefully written name, Africa, in the corner, 
to help imagine the possible country it is intended 
to represent. 


186 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

But to Roger it was a land of wonders, and 
he believed in every castle and gold-clad em¬ 
peror there. From this map, and from a great 
white horn (perhaps not unlike the horn that 
Salvation Yeo gave to Amyas Leigh) on which 
were traced the voyages to the Indies, East and 
West, Roger had received all his map lessons, 
and we must not wonder if he held some rather 
curious notions of the world and its countries 
and people. He believes in mermaids and drag¬ 
ons ; and he knows an old sailor, Simon Johnson, 
who wears in his bosom an agate stone, by which 
he keeps himself safe from the bite of the most 
deadly serpent. And this same Simon Johnson 
was with Sebastian Cabot, up the Plata River, 
where serpents most venomous are plenty; and 
his agate must have saved him, for there he sits 
with his pot of ale on the bench outside the door 
of the Blue Lion, and tells to the boys all sorts 
of wondrous stories. 

If you doubt about the dragons, and the rooms 
full of gold and silver, Roger will answer you; 
“But, Simon Johnson has seen them.” 


i8 7 


The Story of Roger 

Just now there was some talk among his play¬ 
mates about mermaids, and Roger promptly set¬ 
tled all doubts by saying: “ There are mermaids, 
for Simon Johnson has seen one,” and he led 
the way to the old man’s seat in the sunny 
doorway, that he might have his statement proved 
true. 

“Yes, I seed mun with my own eyes,” said 
old Simon. “It was when I was a sailing the 
South Seas. Her yellow hair floated abroad over 
the water, and her head bobbed up and down 
as if a beckoning of us. And the Spanish pris¬ 
oner we had on board, he crossed hisself and 
called upon the saints to save him ; but the rest 
of us just kept our eyes on mun, until she sunk 
away out of sight, with naught but her yellow hair 
a beckoning and a beckoning still to the last.” 

The boys listened in wonder, and believed 
every word of old Simon’s story; and I think 
the old man himself believed it too. 

One of Roger’s gayest holidays is May Day. 

I dare say you children go a Maying your¬ 
selves ; but in these old days in England, not 


188 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

only the children, but also their fathers and 
mothers, were up at early dawn on May Day, 
to deck the house doorway with blossoming haw¬ 
thorn, and trim the Maypole with garlands of 
flowers; for there were Maypoles on the greens 
of all villages and towns, and even in the squares 
of London itself. 

And among the young men there had been 
a rivalry for months as to who was the best 
archer, and should represent Robin Hood in 
the May games. For Robin Hood was king 
of the May, and with him came Maid Marian, 
and Little John and Friar Tuck; and there were 
morris dancers, with tinkling bells at knee and 
elbow; and there was the prancing hobby-horse, 
and the bellowing dragon, to remind the English 
boys of the famous old story of St. George and 
the dragon, and teach them the meaning of the 
grand old battle cry, “ St. George for merrie Eng¬ 
land ! ” — and merrie England indeed it was in 
those days. 

At the Blue Lion, Roger sees one day a sight 
that delights while it terrifies him, — the great 


189 


The Story of Roger 

fire-breathing captain, who has sailed to the other 
side of the world, and, as the boys firmly believe, 
has seen headless men and flying dragons. You 
would laugh at him and say: “Fire-breathing, 
indeed! It is only a man smoking a cigar!” 

But the world is full of wonders for this boy. 
Even a newspaper, so common a sight to us all, 
is a wonder to him ; for it is but just now that 
the English Mercury , filled with news many weeks 
old, of Spaniards, and trading voyages, and fights 
upon land or sea, is published once or twice a 
week, and sent by foot or horsemen to the prin¬ 
cipal cities of the kingdom. 

When he goes with his companions for a long 
ramble out on the broad fields and downs, they 
step aside with care if they chance upon those 
mushroom rings which the pixies (as they call 
the fairies) have made for their midnight dances. 
And if you or I should try to tell him that there 
are really no pixies or fairies, he would not believe 
us. He knows better than that, and here he can 
show us the dancing rings to prove the truth. 

He believes, too, that if he could be so 


190 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

fortunate as to gather fern seed on St. John’s eve,— 
the only time in the whole year, according to fairy 
lore, when the fern produces seed, — he could 
walk invisible among his companions. 

But now I must tell you how Roger went with 
his father to London, riding behind the servant 
on horseback, and spending two or three nights 
at the inns in Exeter, Taunton, and other fine 
old towns by the way. 

“ The lad may as well begin to learn what the 
world is like,” said his father, “and there is no 
school better than experience.” 

At last, after nightfall of the sixth day, they 
reached London, and found themselves on paved 
streets, with here and there a lantern to make 
darkness visible. 

They put up at a famous inn, called the “ Bel 
Savage,” and were just in time to witness one 
of those pageants of which Queen Elizabeth and 
her people were so fond. For the Queen was 
coming down the river from Westminster in her 
barge, and was to be received by a procession 
of merchants and tradespeople. 


The Story of Roger 191 

Across the street, near the inn, an arch had been 
erected, surmounted by a model of a ship under full 
sail, with a motto, “The Commerce of England. 
Her merchants serve and honor their Queen.” 

How proud Roger was to stand beside his 
father and pull off his cap and shout, when the 
cry, “The Queen! the Queen!” sounded down 
the street; and the stately lady, with enormous 
ruff and jeweled head-dress, sitting in a carriage 
drawn by white horses, paused under the archway 
and let the procession pass slowly before her, 
while a little lad, no bigger than Roger himself, 
decked with flags and rare devices to suggest for¬ 
eign lands, dropped on one knee and craved per¬ 
mission to introduce to her Majesty the characters 
as they passed. 

The permission being graciously granted, first 
came her Majesty’s imports from Cathay, spread 
open to view by a curiously grotesque Chinaman. 
Then followed Manila, with sugar and spices, in 
the person of a real little East Indian boy, page to 
the Countess of Essex, brought home by Master 
Cavendish when he sailed up the Thames with the 


192 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

famous silken sails displayed. Then came fruits 
and damasks and rich rugs from the Levant, and 
furs from Russia, and the woolens of the Flemish 
weavers, and their lovely laces too. But the crown¬ 
ing wonder of all was the American Indian, with 
beaver skins, and ores, supposed to be silver and 
gold, and the inscription “Virginia to the Virgin 
Queen ” ; for Raleigh had received his grant of 
land in the New World, and named it in honor of 
his sovereign. 

I must not tell you more, for already you have 
heard enough to make you realize how different is 
Roger's life from your own ; and you can read, in 
books of history, of voyages to the New World, 
and sea fights with the Spaniards, which will tell 
you, better than I can, how, before many years, 
the boy realized his dreams and satisfied his long¬ 
ings, and grew up to be one of those bold, adven¬ 
turous Englishmen who helped to make the New 
World what it is. 

And so we will leave Roger, and pass on to the 
sadder experiences of Ezekiel Fuller, the Puritan 
boy. 



THE STORY OF EZEKIEL FULLER, THE PURITAN 
BOY — December 22, 1620 

“ I count my loss a gain ” 

As you read the date at the head of this chap¬ 
ter, you will exclaim, “ Forefathers’ Day! ” or 
“ The landing of the Pilgrims ! ” And what has 
that to do with Ezekiel Fuller? 

But I did not put that date at the head of the 
chapter for the Pilgrims, but for Ezekiel himself. 
It was his birthday. 

On that same wintry day when upon Plymouth 
rock stepped John Carver, William Bradford,' old 


193 







194 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Elder Brewster, valiant Miles Standish, and his 
young friend John Alden, William White with his 
wife beside him, and little Peregrine in his arms, 
and many another brave and true man and woman 
who helped to found New England, — on that same 
wintry day was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, Eng¬ 
land, a little son to Ezekiel and Prudence Fuller. 
There was much talk about a name for this baby. 
His father proposed “ Faint-not,” or “ Serve-the- 
Lord” ; but his mother objected to these names. 

“If it be the Lord’s will, the boy will serve 
Him, by whatever name he is called,” she said ; 
“and, to my mind, a father’s name is good and 
suitable for a son. Let him be called Ezekiel, 
which, besides being your own name, is that of a 
prophet of the Lord, who served Him through 
much tribulation, as we ourselves are like to do.” 

On the other hand the father replied : “ Look at 
your cousin Thorsby ; did he not name his boy 
Zeal-for-Truth, and has not the youth grown up 
worthy of the name he bears ? In these troublous 
times we ought to bear our testimony even in our 


The Story of Ezekiel Fuller 195 

But, after all, the mother’s wish prevailed, and 
the boy was Ezekiel Fuller, like his father and 
grandfather before him. He was born, as I told 
you, on the very day when the Pilgrims landed at 
Plymouth, but the news of that landing did not 
reach England until the next year, when the May¬ 
flower returned, bringing sad tidings of sickness 
and death among the little band, but not one word 
of discouragement or despondency, and not one 
man, woman, or child returning to England. 

Among these Pilgrims was an uncle of our little 
boy; and as year after year went by, the May¬ 
flower, the Ann, the Little Janies, or the Lion s 
Whelp undertook that long and perilous voyage 
across the Atlantic, and returned bringing letters 
from the colonists to their friends in England. So 
Ezekiel heaprd of the little town growing up in that 
far-away new world, and he felt sure that it would 
not be long before his father too would sail away 
from the troubles that beset him, to secure peace 
of mind and freedom amid the hardships of that 
wilderness. 

For already, before he was ten years old, he 


196 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

had seen his father led away to jail and locked up 
for many weeks, because, instead of attending the 
church which the king had ordered for all men, he 
preferred to hold a quiet meeting in his own house 
or that of his neighbor, where they might worship 
God in their own way. 

And when he had cried, and said to his mother: 
“ How shall we get father back again ? who will 
help him ? ” his mother had wiped away her own 
tears and answered : “ It is for the cause of God 
that he suffers ; do not be afraid ; the Lord will 
take care of him and of us too.” 

And then she had called him and his little sis¬ 
ter Patience to her side, and taught them the 
grand old psalm, — 

“The Lord is both my health and light, 

Shall men make me dismayed ? 

Sith God doth give me strength and might, 

Why should I be afraid?” 

And the child, young as he was, began to see 
that life was no playtime, but a very serious matter 
indeed. 

To be thoroughly in earnest about everything 


The Story of Ezekiel Fuller 197 

he did was one of the first lessons Ezekiel learned. 
His father had told him of his own school days 
when a boy in London. He had been one of 
the pupils at St. Paul’s School, and had read day 
after day the motto painted upon the schoolroom 
windows, — 

‘‘Either Teach, or Learn, or Leave the Place.” 

A stern command alike for teacher and pupil. 

There was the same earnest idea of work in his 
own school, and even his plays were not merry and 
gay; no dancing round Maypoles, no Christmas 
festivities for him. 

If you ask me, Why not ? I can only answer 
that ever since King James had required all min¬ 
isters to read from their pulpits an order making 
dancing, archery, bowling, and other games a reg¬ 
ular occupation for Sunday afternoons, his father, 
and many another sober and godly man, had 
frowned upon all such pastimes, even upon week 
days. And when their minister had refused to 
read the order from his pulpit, and been turned 
out of his church in consequence, even the boys, 


198 The Road from Lo 7 ig Ago to Now 

who would, we can imagine, like a merry play as 
well as any one, had valiantly taken sides with the 
persecuted, and willingly given up decking May- 
poles with garlands, and dancing on the green. 

It is true that when the winter snows had made 
sliding a temptation not to be resisted, he had 
made a sled from an old gate, with beef bones tied 
under the corners for runners, and had shouted, 
“ Clear the way!” as merrily as the best of you, 
when he came down the long hill. But for the 
most part there was but little real play for this 
boy, and when he stood, with his little sister 
Patience, at their father’s knee, by the evening 
firelight, and begged for a story, it was no fairy 
tale they heard, no romance of brave knights and 
fair ladies, but a stern, sad tale of the flight into 
Holland, or the patient sufferings of men who gave 
up houses and lands and money and friends, and 
all hope of comfort or ease, for a perilous journey, 
and a new home in the wilderness. And they 
counted their loss a gain, since it left them free to 
believe what they thought was the truth, and to do 
what they thought was right. 


The Story of Ezekiel Fuller 199 

And sometimes he would read to them from 
a curious and very interesting book that had been 
lent to him, — 

“A JOURNALL OF THE ENGLISH PLANTATION AT PLYM¬ 
OUTH, in New England.” 

“ Printed for John Bellamie, and are to be sold at his shop 
at the two Grayhounds in Cornhill near the Royal Exchange, 
London.” 


What wonder, with such training, that the little 
boy in his plain doublet and hose, with close-cropped 
hair, and peaked hat shading his thoughtful face, 
should look more like a little old man than like a 
merry young lad! 

But there were enough merry lads in England 
in those days; lads whose fathers took their sports 
of a Sunday afternoon, and did not trouble them¬ 
selves about the right and the wrong of that, or 
any other thing which the king had already decided 
for them. 

And these lads, in their gay dresses and ruffles 
and laces, passed the Puritan boy on his way to 
school, and laughed at his sober dress, and some- 


200 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

times shouted after him: “ Would you like a 

lodging in Boston jail, young Puritan ? ” 

It was not an easy life that Ezekiel led. 

One day the merry lads came down the street 
in a crowd, following a man in the Puritan dress, 
who bore upon his cheek a mark branded by a hot 
iron, and on either side of his head a cruel scar 
where his ears had been cut off. 

And while the boy looked and wondered, he saw 
his father hasten out of the house, take the stranger 
by the hand, and, bidding him welcome, lead him 
into his own home. 

Ezekiel followed, eager to know the meaning of 
this strange thing, and his father, calling him to 
his side, said : “ Good Master Burton, this is my 
little son, who would fain see how those who serve 
the Lord can suffer in His cause.” 

The next day being Sunday, Master Burton was 
holding a meeting in a small back room of the 
house, and had just taken the little Geneva Bible 
from his pocket and begun to read, “ He that shall 
endure unto the end\ the same shall be saved ,” when 
the door was broken open by a band of soldiers, 


The Story of Ezekiel Fuller 20 1 

and not only Master Burton, but also Master Fuller 
himself, was marched off to jail, there to await the 
next sitting of the court to answer to the charge of 
holding unlawful meetings. 

And so weary weeks passed by before the boy 
saw his father’s face again. And when he came 
home from the jail, worn and thin and pale from 
the long imprisonment, his mind was made up to 
seek liberty for himself and his household in the 
far-distant New England. 

It was, indeed, a land full of savages, but no 
savages could treat him more cruelly than he had 
already been treated. 

And a goodly company of his friends and neigh¬ 
bors, from Boston and other parts of Lincolnshire, 
as well as from London and Nottingham and Dev¬ 
onshire. had, in the great emigration of 1630, sailed 
away to found Dorchester and Cambridge and 
Charlestown and Boston. 

“ We will go to Boston,” said Goodman Fuller, 
as he talked with his wife by the fireside, on 
the first night after his release from jail; while 
the children, sitting on their wooden stools in the 


202 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

chimney corner, looked and listened, but did not 
dare to speak. 

“To Boston, because it will be more home-like, 
not only by its name, but there we shall find old 
friends and neighbors who went out last year with 
Mr. Winthrop. And, if I have been rightly in¬ 
formed, good Mr. John Elliot has an intention of 
going thither himself next month in a ship called 
the Lyon, which is to sail from London.” 

And his wife put her hand in his, and said: 
“Truly, Ezekiel, I think that the Lord calls us to 
go, and I am ready.” 

It was now July, and the Lyon was to sail in 
August, so there was little time for preparation. 

To the boy it was only a pleasure to help in the 
packing of the household furniture, and to go with 
his father to buy a cow and some goats to be taken 
to their new home. 

Then came the journey to London, a slow prog¬ 
ress by the carrier’s cart, and the stowing of 
themselves and their goods on board the Lyon , 
which had scarcely room for her sixty passengers 
and their cattle and household stuff. All this 


203 


The Story of Ezekiel Fuller 

was a delightful experience to Ezekiel, as it would 
be to any boy of his age, in these days as well 
as in those. 

But, oh, what a voyage across the Atlantic ! For 
ten long weeks did the Lyon struggle through storms 
and rough seas before the friendly shores of new 
Boston welcomed the wanderers from old Boston. 

Ezekiel has seen porpoises and whales and great 
icebergs, and his father, standing beside him on the 
deck, says, “ See the works of the Lord and His 
wonders in the deep.” 

And when they had been many days tossed 
about by waves and winds, and at last awoke one 
morning, and, climbing to the deck, saw the beau¬ 
tiful rosy light of the dawn of a fair day, shining 
over the wide, smooth waters, the boy did not won¬ 
der that Mr. Elliot opened his Bible and read from 
the Psalms, — 

‘‘He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves 
are still.” 

Ezekiel thought he had never quite understood 
those words before, though he had heard them 
many and many a time. 


204 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

At last, after weary watching for land, a wild 
pigeon one day alights on the mast, and they know 
that his home cannot be far away. 

As they enter Boston Harbor they meet a little 
vessel sailing out, and, hailing her, learn that she is 
The Blessing of the Bay , Governor Winthrop’s 
little bark of thirty tons, built soon after he reached 
Boston, and bound now to New York to trade with 
the Dutch who have settled there. 

In Boston they find both old friends and new, 
and as they are well-known Puritans, a piece of 
land is at once allotted to Goodman Fuller, whereon 
he may build him a house. 

What a strange, new life this is for Ezekiel! 
For the first few weeks he wants nothing better 
than the chance to look about him; but he has 
little opportunity for idle gazing. A Puritan boy 
must never be idle, least of all a New England 
Puritan; so he is busy helping to build the 
house, to plant corn in the spring, and to make 
fences, — so busy that he hardly has time to 
wonder at the Indians in deerskin garments, 
with bows and arrows, who bring in fish and 



THE INDIANS BRING FISH AND BEAVER-SKINS TO TRADE 
WITH THE " KNIFE MEN ” 















206 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

beaver-skins to trade with the “ knife men,” as 
they call the English. 

One day he goes with his father and some other 
settlers up the Charles River to Beaver Brook, to 
visit the traps that they have set for beaver. There 
he sees many great trees that have been gnawed 
down by the skillful animals; and in the traps two 
or three beavers, whose skins will find a good 
market in London. 

He has not been many months a New England 
boy, before he is sent to school to Master Philemon 
Pormont, the Boston schoolmaster, who has been 
engaged by the magistrates to teach the boys 
reading, writing, and ciphering. And at school he 
becomes acquainted with some Indian lads; for 
when the magistrates engaged the schoolmaster, 
they made him promise to teach Indians without 
pay. 

Among these Indians is one who bears the curi¬ 
ous name, “ Know-God,” and he and Ezekiel 
become playmates and friends. The Indian lad 
teaches the English boy to dig clams and mussels, 
to tread eels out of the mud, and to snare squirrels 


The Story of Ezekiel Fuller 207 

and rabbits; and, in return, Ezekiel teaches him 
the English names of all common objects, so that 
the boy can soon make himself so well understood 
that he begins to be useful as an interpreter. 

One day news comes that many Indians, a few 
miles back in the forest, are very sick with the 
smallpox, among them Sagamore James, the father 
of little “ Know-God,” and two weeks after, the 
boy is brought into Boston by some English hunt¬ 
ers, a lonely orphan, all his family having died of 
the terrible disease. 

Then Ezekiel begs his father to take the Indian 
lad into his home; and, as the elders have already 
recommended that such of the colonists as are able 
to do so shall rescue these poor Indian children 
from their wretched condition, Goodman Fuller, 
with the consent of the authorities, takes the boy, 
promising to teach him to work, and to bring 
him up in the fear of the Lord. 

One of Ezekiel's greatest pleasures is to go 
down to the landing when a ship arrives from 
England; or even when one of the little vessels, 
of which the colony now owns several, sails out 


208 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

for whale catching at Cape Cod, or for trading to 
Virginia or New York. 

And so it happens that he is standing beside his 
father on the wharf when their old Boston minis¬ 
ter, Mr. John Cotton, lands from the Griffin , with 
his wife and the little baby born on the voyage, 
and named “Sea-born.” 

I tell you this for the sake of showing you what 
odd names children sometimes had in those days. 

But there are other odd things to be noticed, as 
well as names. There are stocks set up in the 
market place, where you may often see offenders 
sitting with both hands and feet shut into holes in 
the wooden framework, — a curious punishment 
for many small misdeeds. Indeed it is said that 
the man who built the stocks was made to sit in 
them himself for charging too much for his work. 

Then there is the windmill on a hill, where the 
Boston people get their corn ground. And there 
are the wolves’ heads brought in every week or 
two, for each plantation has promised a reward of 
one penny for every cow or horse, and one farthing 
for every pig or goat, owned in the settlement, to 


The Story of Ezekiel Fuller 209 

the man who kills a wolf. No wonder that the 
wolves were soon reduced in numbers. 

It is not long after this time, that the court 
orders that musket bullets may be used instead of 
farthings, so, if our boy had any spending money, 
or there was anything to buy with it, he might 
have a pocketful of bullets for change. But he 
has very little need of any money, since there is, 
as yet, not a single shop in Boston. 

As Ezekiel grows older there is one thing that 
often puzzles him. He sees every month some one 
punished, or driven out of the town, for not agree¬ 
ing with the Puritan Church; and, remembering 
that it was on account of just such persecution 
that his father had fled from England, and that, 
indeed, almost all these New England settlers had, 
for that same reason, left their homes in Old Eng¬ 
land, he wonders how they can so understand the 
meaning of that rule which he has heard from min¬ 
ister, parents, and teachers ever since he was old 
enough to remember,— 

“ Do unto others as you would have others do 
to you.” 



CHAPTER X 

THE STORY OF JONATHAN DAWSON, THE 
YANKEE BOY 

“ Never ask another to do for you what you can do for yourself ” 

Let us take a look at this Yankee boy, as he 
sits on the wooden settle beside the great, roaring 
wood fire, and, by the light of its cheerful blaze, 
reads “ The Pilgrim’s Progress.” 

He is a tall and sturdy lad, with face somewhat 
freckled and hair somewhat bleached by constant 
exposure to sunshine, or whatever other kind of 
weather the Lord chooses to send. 

He wears a jacket and trousers of coarse, strong 
woolen cloth of the color known as “ pepper and 


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212 


TJte Road from Long Ago to Now 

salt,” and even this simple suit of clothes would be 
a fit subject for a collector of curiosities in our 
own day. Only a week ago the wool of which it 
was made was on the sheep’s backs. 

“ Jonathan must have a new suit of clothes,” his 
mother had said, as she carefully set a round patch 
into the middle of the big square one that she had 
inserted into his trousers a month or two ago. 

“ Patch beside patch is good housewiferie ; 

But patch upon patch is sheer beggarie.” 

“I can make the clothes now, if I have the 
wool; but next week come the soap making and 
the quilting, and there will not be much time to 
spare.” 

“ Then I will shear for you to-morrow,” said her 
husband, and, true to his word, he brought her in a 
black fleece and a white one, and the wool was soon 
carded, and the spinning wheels in motion. 

Thankful, the oldest daughter, was a good spin¬ 
ner, and their neighbor, Mrs. Deliverance Putnam, 
coming in the next day, began also to spin with the 
big wheel, while she told her news ; so it was not; 


The Story of Jonathan Dawson 213 

long before the Jieavy skeins of black and white 
yarn were ready for the loom. 

Mother herself is the best weaver; so Thank¬ 
ful and Betty did the churning and cooking and 
sweeping and mending, while she “ set up ” a good 
piece of mixed black and white cloth (pepper and 
salt as I said before). 

Then Miss Polly Emerson, the tailoress, came 
to cut out the clothes, and busy hands (not sew¬ 
ing machines, for who ever dreamed of a sewing 
machine in those days ?) soon stitched them to¬ 
gether, and there was Jonathan’s new suit, home- 
spun, home-woven, home-made. 

We may have some idea of what a suit of 
clothes is worth when we understand how all this 
work has been needed for the making of it. And 
now we are ready to charge Jonathan not to use 
his new clothes carelessly.' He isn’t to wear 
them every day, of course ; his old ones will still 
last some months with careful patching. But 
to-day is Sunday and he has been to meeting, and 
sat on the pulpit stairs through a sermon two 
hours long by the hourglass, in the forenoon, and 


214 Th e Road from Long Ago to Now 

another scarcely shorter in the afternoon, relieved 
a little, however, by the singing from the old Bay 
Psalm Book in which the whole congregation 
joined. 

Now, since the sun has set, and the needful 
household chores are done, he may read “ Pilgrim’s 
Progress ” by the firelight. 

At noontime he had eaten his dinner of bread 
and cheese on Meetinghouse Green, where he 
talked with Reuben Thompson and Abner Dwight, 
who had come with their parents to meeting, rid¬ 
ing by a bridle path through the woods. Jonathan 
stood on the meetinghouse steps to watch them 
ride away when the afternoon services had ended, 
— Farmer Dwight on his brown horse, with his 
good wife behind him on a pillion, and Goodman 
Thompson on his old gray, which also carried 
double, for Goodwife Thompson sat smiling behind 
her husband, as easy and comfortable as if in her 
own chair at home. 

The two boys rode together on old Dobbin, 
and urged him along as best they could, lest they 
should not get through Price’s woods before dark; 


The Story of Jonathan Dawson 215 

for it wasn’t unusual to meet a prowling wolf by 
the way after nightfall. 

Then Jonathan had trudged home, two miles 
over a rough road, and was ending his day beside 
the fire, with his book, as I told you in the begin¬ 
ning of the chapter. 

He had just got as far as Giant Despair and 
Doubting Castle, when his little sister Patty, sit¬ 
ting on a low stool before the fire, with her kitten 
in her lap, called to him to look quickly, and see 
the wild geese go up the chimney; and there, on 
the sooty back of the great, wide fireplace, the 
sparks had caught for a moment like a flock of 
birds, quickly moving up the chimney as one died 
out and a fresh one caught fire. 

The children always liked to watch them, and 
this time Stephen Stackpole, their father’s hired 
man, stopped for an instant to watch them too, 
while he laid a fresh armful of wood beside the 
fire. 

“Them ain’t wild geese, children,” he said. 
“ Them’s the folks goin’ to meetin’. Don’t ye 
see, there’s the parson in front, and all the folks 


216 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

flockin’ on behind. That’s what we used to call 
’em when I was a boy.” 

Sunday evenings were short in those days, and 
Monday morning found our boy up at daybreak, 
and dressed in his patched clothes. He is busy 
about his morning work, for he has to help about 
the milking, drive the cows and sheep to pasture, 
draw water from the well with a bucket hung from 
a long pole called the well-sweep. And then he 
must carry the hams up to the little smokeroom 
that is built into the chimney, and reached through 
a door which opens from the attic; for the best 
of bacon was smoked in every household chimney 
in those days. 

While he is working, we will take a look at his 
home, — a strange, one-sided-looking house, with 
a “ lean-to” at the back or north side, where there 
is a cool buttery, or pantry, which saves Goodwife 
Dawson many a trip down cellar or out to the 
well. For the well is used as a sort of refrigera¬ 
tor, and many a pail of butter is kept cool and 
sweet in its depths. 

The cellar has a big trapdoor outside the house, 


The Story of Jonathan Dawson 2 17 

and ladder-like steps to go down, and when this 
door is closed it makes a comfortable seat where, 
on a summer afternoon, you might see little Patty 
Dawson sitting with her knitting work; for, the 
minute the child sat down, her mother would put 
her knitting work into her hands, saying: “ You 
can rest just as well knitting.” And the conse¬ 
quence was that the little eight-year-old girl has 
already become an expert knitter, and has not 
only knitted a pair of stockings for herself, but 
also a big stout pair, of blue yarn, for her brother. 

The cellar had bins for potatoes and turnips 
and other vegetables, and many an hour has 
Jonathan worked there, storing away the winter 
stock of food. 

“ That is just what the farmers do everywhere, 
now as well as then,” you will say. 

That is true of the farmers, but in Jonathan’s 
time this storing of provisions for the winter 
was necessary for every man, for provision stores 
were few and far between, and almost every man 
had land enough to raise all that was needed for 
his own family. 


218 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

When the cellar door was closed, you could 
stand upon it and look in at the east window of 
the kitchen. It was a window of twenty-four 
small panes of coarse, greenish glass, set in heavy 
sashes, but through it you could look into the 
pleasantest room in the house. 

It extended the whole way across the back 
part of the house, and had one east window and 
two west ones, and the sun lay across the floor, 
one way or the other, all day long. On the 
north side was the great brick fireplace, with a 
stone hearth that measured ten feet by seven. 

In the afternoon, when the work was done, the 
kitchen floor was sprinkled with sand, which was 
swept into graceful curves, like a prettily marked- 
out pattern. Thankful always took her finest birch 
broom for this sweeping, and prided herself upon 
her kitchen floor as much as Minnie and Alice do 
now upon their piano playing and embroidery. 

The kitchen fire was a pleasant sight. It not 
only roasted the meat, and boiled the kettle and 
the pots that hung from the hooks of the crane, 
but it also filled the kitchen with a glow of light 


The Story of Jonathan Dawson 219 

and heat, and shone upon the pewter plates and 
dishes on the dresser, and the polished brasses of 
the great chest of drawers that stood opposite 
the fireplace. 

Under the doors and around the windows win¬ 
ter winds blew in, and snow drifted into little 
piles on the sills, and grandfather had to sit in 
the warmest corner, where the high back of the 
settle protected him from drafts. 

Over the fireplace were curious little cupboards 
in the wall, so high up that the children could not 
reach them ; but perhaps the treasures they con¬ 
tained were all the safer for that. 

Sometimes, after supper, sitting there by the 
firelight, the children ask their grandfather for a 
story, and he answers: “Well, hand me down 
the old cup, and I will tell one.” 

And Jonathan climbs on one of the rush-bot¬ 
tomed chairs, opens the little cupboard door, that 
is fastened by a wooden button, and from a shelf 
inside takes out a curiously shaped little wooden 
cup. It is made of oak wood, and is already turn¬ 
ing dark with age. 


220 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Putting it into the old man’s hand, he stands 
beside him to listen to the strange and terrible 
story he has already heard many a time before, of 
the sudden night attack upon the settlement by 
French and Indians, when his grandfather was a 
young man. How he waked only to find the 
house in flames and surrounded by whooping sav¬ 
ages, tomahawk in hand, and how he was marched 
away captive through the forest, with many other 
men, women, and children, who, as it happened to 
please their captors, were held for ransom instead 
of being tortured and killed. 

It was during this strange captivity that he 
had made this little wooden cup to drink from, 
and brought it away with him when at last the 
end of the war brought an exchange of prisoners. 
“ You mind neighbor Churchill’s wife, my boy,” 
the old man would say. “ Well, she was one of 
the babies that was taken through the woods with 
us, — a baby in her mother’s arms. The hope 
of saving her baby was all that kept that poor 
mother alive through that terrible march. Not 
until we reached the Indian village, near the 


The Story of Jonathan Dawson 221 

Canada line, did she give up, and then she just 
dropped down and died. 

“ The Indians would have made short work 
with the baby if the mother had dropped on the 
road, but in the village a childless squaw claimed 
it for her own, and a good foster-mother she 
made, too. It was pitiful to hear her plead to 
keep it when the news came that the chief had 
given his word that all prisoners should be sent 
down to the nearest fort for exchange. 

“ ‘ The little one has no other mother but me,’ 
she said. 

“ It was true, and the child was loath to leave 
her; but its own father was at the fort to claim 
his wife and baby, and he went home with the 
poor little thing sobbing in his arms, as sorry 
to leave her Indian mammy as if she had never 
known any other.” 

“ You’ll keep this cup, boy,” he said, as he 
handed it back to be returned to its place in 
the little chimney cupboard. 

“That I will, grandfather; it is as good as a 
story itself,” answered Jonathan. 


222 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

“ We are safe enough here, now, from the red¬ 
skins,” continued the old man, “but there are 
plenty of them still in the wilderness of the 
Ohio and in Kentuck, and you may have to 
meet them in battle yet, Jonathan.” 

You will see that the old grandfather was not 
the only one who thought it likely that the boys 
would need to fight some day. Master Wads¬ 
worth, the schoolmaster, had also the same idea; 
perhaps not with regard to fighting Indians only, 
but possibly British troops, for, if you will go to 
school with Jonathan, you will see that there was 
something besides reading, writing, and ciphering 
taught in that school. On the schoolroom walls 
hung a row of wooden muskets with tin bayonets, 
and, as the clock struck twelve, Master Wads¬ 
worth took up his cocked hat, and, shouting “To 
arms! ” led his little regiment of boys out to drill. 
He taught them the proper handling of their arms, 
marched them, and wheeled and countermarched, 
through sunshine and through rain, over hills and 
through woods. “ For the need will surely come,” 
said the master, “and you must be ready.” 


The Story of Jonathan Dawson 223 

And the need did come. In less than ten 
years Master Wadsworth was General Wadsworth, 
and some of his old schoolboys were serving under 
him in the Revolutionary war. 

On Friday afternoon there was catechising in 
school. On Monday morning the texts of yes¬ 
terday’s sermons must be repeated. 

The most common reading book was the Bible; 
and many a worn-out copy that had been used in 
school showed how the children had toiled over 
the hard words and unpronounceable names. So 
poor was the print of some of these old Bibles 
that there were often blotted words which could 
not be deciphered, and the reader would supply 
their places by saying, “scratched out.” 

“ The city that the Lord hath scratched out, n read 
Jonathan in a loud, singsong voice, one morning. 

“ Stop, stop ! ” cried Master Wadsworth ; “ let 
me see, you young rascal, what city that is.” 

Saturday was a holiday, and of course you 
want to know what Jonathan did then. 

It wasn’t all play, for Yankee boys, in whatever 
station in life, used to work in those days. 


224 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

So the first thing in the morning was to bring 
in the oven wood. If you don’t know what that 
means, I must tell you that beside the fireplace 
was a great brick oven, like a baker’s oven. It 
was heated by building a fire in it, which, when 
it had burned down, left the bricks so hot that 
the heat would serve for hours to bake bread 
and cake and pies, and finish by cooking a great 
pot of beans and a loaf of brown bread, which 
were left in all night, and taken out still warm 
for breakfast on Sunday morning. The oven 
wood was always to be brought in early on Satur¬ 
day morning. 

Then there was the jack to be wound up; that 
was another thing for Jonathan to do. I don’t 
believe any of you know what the jack was, 
and, to explain it, I must tell you that, when 
meat was to be roasted, it had a long iron spit 
run through it, and was placed before the fire, 
where the ends of the spit rested in a frame. 
Now, of course, the spit must be turned round 
and round, or the meat would roast only on one 
side. 


The Story of Jonathan Dawson 225 

I have heard of dogs being employed to turn 
a spit, by means of a little treadmill, but I think 
the jack which used to be in my grandfather’s 
old kitchen ’was a better turnspit. It had weights 
like a tall clock, and was wound up and attached 
to the spit, which it would turn steadily round 
and round, until it ran down. Then, of course, 
it could easily be wound up again. 

After the jack was wound up, Goodwife Daw¬ 
son would perhaps say that she needed new 
brooms; and Jonathan would go to the edge of 
the woods for suitable birch sticks, and then, 
sitting on the kitchen doorstep, he stripped them 
down nearly to the end, turned the strips over, 
and tied them firmly round, thus making a very 
useful broom. Could you do that, do you think ? 

Or, if she did not need brooms, she might want 
ribwort, or sage, or raspberry leaves gathered to 
dry for tea, for already the odious tea-tax had 
roused the Yankees to resistance, and only “ liberty 
tea” was used in this patriotic family. Some¬ 
times Jonathan brought home from the fields or 
pastures the sweet-smelling bayberries, that his 


226 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

mother might have bayberry tallow for her candle¬ 
making. 

The firelight, as we have already seen, was 
often bright enough to read by at night, but 
there was always also a good supply of home¬ 
made candles, both dip and mold. The former 
made by dipping a wick into melted tallow, cool¬ 
ing and dipping again and again until it was large 
enough ; the latter, by pouring the melted tallow 
into a mold. The bayberry tallow gave out a 
pleasant fragrance as it burned, and was also of 
a pretty green color, and the bayberry candles 
were often run in a pretty fluted mold. 

The work being finished, the boy would be off 
to the woods to set snares for rabbits, or traps 
for foxes ; perhaps even to help the young men 
of the neighborhood set a bear trap for the brown 
bear that had killed a calf last week. 

Sometimes a flock of wild pigeons would almost 
darken the sky, and would fall by dozens at the 
fire of the old guns which were to be found in 
every house, hanging on the hooks over the door 
of the fireplace. 


The Story of Jonathan Dawson 227 

The best Saturday play was “ training,” as the 
boys called playing soldiers. 

“Training day” was the day when the militia 
marched out to the meetinghouse green and were 
reviewed by their officers. And the boys, who 
looked on with delight, celebrated their training 
day as often as a leisure Saturday would permit. 

They hadn’t many holidays. Christmas was 
frowned upon, as a festival of the English Church 
upon which their ancestors had turned their backs 
when they came to this country. But Thanksgiv¬ 
ing was the chief feast day of the year. To meet¬ 
ing in the forenoon, to hear a good strong sermon 
on the state of the country; and then home to a 
grand dinner of turkey and chicken pie, plum pud¬ 
ding and pies of pumpkin, apples, and mince, with 
a dessert of apples and cider, and a grand game 
of blind-man’s-buff in the evening, — that was 
Thanksgiving Day. And while they were in the 
midst of its festivities, perhaps a great snowstorm 
would come, and block up the windows and doors, 
so that their only way out the next day would be 
through a tunneled drift. 


228 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

Sometimes, on a market day, the boy goes into 
Boston with his father, who with well-filled saddle¬ 
bags rides his big bay horse, while his son jogs 
slowly beside him on old Dobbin. They cross the 
river on a flat ferryboat worked by a chain which 
stretches across the stream, and they enter town 
by the road leading in over “the Neck,” where 
they meet the New York stage which has been 
two weeks on its way from that city, bringing 
mails and passengers. 

In Boston he sees gentlemen in their powdered 
wigs, braided queues, cocked hats, lace ruffles, 
smallclothes with knee buckles, and gilt buttons 
on their coats. Occasionally, too, a carriage with 
a black footman or a coachman, — slaves they 
were, Caesar or Cato by name; for Massachusetts 
had not yet set all her slaves free, though men 
were beginning to think that they couldn’t con¬ 
scientiously say, “ All men are born free and 
equal,” while they held any in bondage. 

He is always glad when business takes his father 
down to the wharves, so that he may see what is 
coming from or going to other parts of the world. 


The Story of Jonathan Dawson 229 

Perhaps a schooner is in from Barbados, loaded 
with molasses, and another is loading for the same 
port with salt fish. A ship from England, which 
has been five or six weeks on the way, is unload¬ 
ing window glass, salt, calico, broadcloth, hardware, 
and many a simple thing that the skillful New Eng¬ 
landers could make for themselves if their mother 
country would allow them to do so. 

Jonathan stands under the great elm, that has 
already received the name of “ Liberty Tree,” and 
he sees red-coated soldiers in the streets, and hears 
on all sides talk of the British war ships in the 
harbor. 

His father buys a copy of “Poor Richard’s 
Almanac,” published by Benjamin Franklin in 
Philadelphia, and also a newspaper, “The Massa¬ 
chusetts Spy,” and carries them safely home to 
read at his leisure; for a newspaper was a rare 
treasure in those days. And the buying of the 
newspaper reminds me to tell you what sort of 
money Jonathan uses, when he has any to use, — 
which, to tell the truth, is not often. 

He has coppers or pennies three times as large 


230 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

as our present cents. Then he has sometimes a 
silver sixpence, or ninepence, or a little piece called 
fourpence-ha’penny, and occasionally a Spanish 
pistareen, which is worth about twenty cents. He 
has seen pine-tree shillings, which were used in his 
grandfather’s day, but there are no five or ten cent 
pieces, no quarter or half dollars, though there 
are big Spanish silver dollars, much used by the 
merchants. 

If he is sent to buy sugar or molasses for his 
mother, he is perhaps told that the price is “ one 
and sixpence,” or “two and six,” or “three and 
nine.” What a mystery such prices must be to 
you to-day! 

His father, last year, bought his wife a calico 
gown at four and sixpence a yard, made, very 
likely, of American cotton, — for cotton had been 
growing in South Carolina for the last twenty 
years, and was already exported to England and 
manufactured. But Goodwife Dawson will not 
wear any more British calico. She will prefer her 
own homespun dresses, and the independence that 
comes with them. 


The Story of Jonathan Dawson 231 

One singular event of Jonathan’s boyhood I 
must not omit to mention. He had the smallpox ; 
that is, he had it given to him on purpose. He 
went, with his mother and two sisters and a half 
dozen of their neighbors, to a lonely house on an 
island, and there the whole party had the smallpox 
together. After they were well, others took their 
places for the same purpose. Vaccination had not 
been discovered, and it was found that taking the 
smallpox by inoculation, as it was called, made the 
disease less dangerous, so it was the custom for 
people to save themselves from the worst form of 
it by taking the lightest. 

Although Jonathan is a. New England boy, he 
has never seen the American flag, for there was no 
American flag in his time; even the pine-tree flag 
had not yet been made. 

He has never celebrated the Fourth of July; for 
as yet there has been nothing to distinguish that 
day from others. But he will live to call it “ Inde¬ 
pendence Day,” and to think of it as the birthday 
of a great nation. 

He is a British subject while a boy. When he 


232 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

is a young man he will be a soldier in the Revolu¬ 
tionary army, and fight under the stars and stripes. 
And long before he is an old man, he will be a 
good citizen of the free and independent republic 
of the United States. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE STORY OF A FEW DAYS IN THE LIFE OF 
FRANK WILSON, THE BOY OF 1885 

“ More servants wait on man than he 'll take notice of'' 

Frank wakes on Monday morning and begins 
the simple process of dressing. Let us stop a 
minute to ask where his clothes came from. 

“ Oh, I don’t know. They were bought at some 
store,” he answers carelessly. 

He hasn’t stopped to think of anything beyond 
the store,—of the great factories where cotton and 
woolen cloths are made daily by the mile; for the 


233 





















234 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

steam engine that turns the spindles and works the 
looms never tires. 

Even the buttons on his jacket could tell him a 
story, for they are made of rubber ; and first, there 
was the gathering of the gum from the trees in 
South America, and the shipping it from Rio de 
Janeiro to New York; then another steam engine 
to work the machinery of the button factory. This 
giant servant begins to wait on him as soon as he 
is up in the morning. 

Jonathan went to the well for water, washed his 
face in a tin basin, and wiped it on a coarse, home- 
spun roller-towel. Frank has but to turn a faucet, 
and hot or cold water is at his service, brought from 
springs ten miles away, without thought or care 
of his. 

Little,, too, does he think how the food comes 
upon his breakfast table. China has sent the tea, 
Arabia or Java the coffee, and Caracas the choco¬ 
late. And there are oranges on the . table, — 
oranges that can only grow in a warm climate. 
Two hundred years ago such a plate of oranges in 
the winter would have been impossible, 


The Story of Frank Wilson 235 

His school is twenty miles away, in Boston. But 
what of that ? There is a wonderful horse of iron 
and steel that will carry him there in less time than 
it would take him to walk two miles. 

In school he finds awaiting him the latest news 
from all parts of the world. All that the wisest 
men have thought out or discovered is at his service. 
Even the ancient Greeks and Romans have handed 
down to him all the best of their store of learning, 
and printing presses are at work day and night, all 
over the land, to record whatever is new. He may 
take it all if his mind is able to grasp it. 

Before school is over, his mother has thought of 
an errand she wishes him to do for her in Boston ; 
so she speaks to him through the telephone, and 
the simple, vibrating wires tell him the message as 
plainly as if he were speaking with his mother face 
to face at home. 

As he goes home with his father on the train in 
the afternoon, they buy for two cents a newspaper 
that tells them what happened in Europe to-day, 
or in Asia yesterday, and what the weather will be 
to-morrow. 


236 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

It seems impossible to surprise this boy, for 
everything is told him before he has a chance to 
be surprised. 

Tuesday morning finds him starting for school 
in a violent snowstorm. Any other boy of 
whom you have read in this book would have 
been wet to the skin before reaching Boston in 
such a storm; but here are rubber overcoat, 
boots, and cap, and, inside of this suit, a boy 
as warm and dry as if sheltered by his own 
fireside. 

Then the train by which he goes to school starts 
out to battle with the drifts. 

Many a snowdrift has been shoveled away by 
the sturdy arms of Ezekiel, or Jonathan, but Frank 
sits quietly studying his Latin lesson, while “the 
sunshine bottled up in the coal ” (as a wise man 
has said) works for him, making steam, by which 
the great snowplow shovels away the drifts, right 
and left, and scorning all obstacles, drives on its 
straight path into Boston. 

If we go with him to school to-day we shall hear 
the recitation. of the astronomy class. When 


The Story of Frank Wilson 237 

Frank was hardly more than a baby, he used to 
repeat, — 

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, 

How I wonder what you are 1 ” 

But now it seems as if no child need wonder any 
more, for here is the telescope to show him a 
rounded globe in place of a twinkling star, and the 
spectroscope to show him that his wonderful star 
is made of the same materials as the familiar earth 
on which he lives. 

After school Frank’s father asks him to go to a 
bookstore and buy for him a certain book which 
he needs. 

“We haven’t the book in the store to-day,” says 
the salesman, “but we will order it from London 
and have it« for you in a week or two.” 

Think of that, and remember how Ezekiel Fuller 
sailed from London to Boston in ten long weeks. 

It is a dark and stormy day, and the bookstore 
is lighted at three o’clock in the afternoon with 
electric light, by which one can read as well as by 
daylight; the gas, too, is lighted in the streets as 
Frank goes down to the train, and in the cars he 


238 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

has some more of the sunshine of former ages 
“ bottled up ” in the kerosene. 

Wednesday is an eventful day. His father 
receives by cable a message saying that he is 
needed in Calcutta to attend to some business. 

The message is dated February 2, but he re¬ 
ceives it on the afternoon of February 1, and this 
fact, which seems like an impossibility, makes very 
clear to Frank the meaning of yesterday’s geog¬ 
raphy lesson about longitude and time. 

“I shall always remember now that west is 
earlier, father, because this message came west 
and reached us earlier than it was sent.” 

On Wednesday evening the family gathered 
round the table to trace upon the map, with the 
father, the course of his proposed journey. 

He will sail to-morrow, and this is their last 
evening together for many months. 

See how the great servant, steam, is going to 
attend him upon his way. It will take him in a 
steamship across the ocean, in cars across France, 
again over the Mediterranean by steamer, and 
through the Suez Canal, Red Sea, and Indian 


The Story of Frank Wilson 239 

Ocean, — every step of the way it will conduct 
him, and land him in Calcutta in a little more than 
a month. 

While he is away, it will carry letters for him 
to his wife and children, and bring back theirs 
to him. 

Whom else could you ask to run on such an 
errand for you, half round the world, for only 
five cents ? 

“ I wish I had a new picture of the boys to take 
with me,” he said next morning, as he looked at 
Frank and his little brother, standing ready to 
go down to the steamer and see him off. “We 
will have one taken to-day,” said their mother, 
“and send it to you by the next mail.” 

Did I tell you of the curious little black profiles 
in round wooden frames, that hung on the walls 
of the sitting room in Jonathan’s home, —the only 
portraits that were to be had in those days, unless 
one was rich enough to pay some portrait painter 
for an elaborate oil painting ? 

Frank will have the greatest of portrait painters 
to paint his picture, and yet he will pay but a few 


240 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

dollars for the work; for it is the sunlight itself 
that will take his photograph. True, there must 
be a photographer who knows how to catch and 
to keep the picture when the great artist has 
painted it; and Frank pays this photographer for 
his work, since he cannot pay the artist himself. 

As they came away from the photographer’s, 
his mother stopped at the shirt factory to order' 
some shirts for the two boys. 

“ I wish we could see how they make ’em,” 
said Frank; and the superintendent, overhearing 
the words, said, “ I will send some one through 
the factory with the young gentlemen, if you 
will allow me, madam.” 

So they went into the great room where the 
cutting was done, then up to the sewing machine 
room, where, instead of the busy fingers that 
used to sew for Roger or Ezekiel or Jonathan, 
a thousand fine fingers of steel, moved by a 
steam engine, stitched away with a merry hum of 
industry, and only asked that some one should 
keep supplying them with more work and more. 
And there were the buttonhole machines, turning 


241 


The Story of Trank Wilson 

off buttonholes as fast as the work could be put 
into place, and nothing seemed to be left for 
common needles and fingers to do, but the sew¬ 
ing on of buttons. 

All this work seems so common to you, that 
you perhaps wonder I should tell you about it; 
but think for a moment of the other nine boys 
who had to live without sewing machines. 

On Friday Frank’s cousin arrives from Cali¬ 
fornia. A week ago he had stood on the Pacific 
shore, and now he stands on the Atlantic. He 
has slept every night in a comfortable bed in a 
sleeping car. He has telegraphed an order for 
his dinner each day to some station which he 
would reach at a suitable hour for dining, and 
he has had all the convenience and none of the 
hardship of a four-thousand-mile journey. Moun¬ 
tains have been tunneled or cut away, wonderful 
trestlework has filled up deep valleys, that his road 
might be straight and secure. No obstacle has 
been able to stand in his way, and he arrives fresh 
and strong, and full of interesting stories of the 
mining regions and the great ranches. 


242 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

He goes next day with Frank to Barnum’s 
menagerie. No doubt you have all been there 
too, and I don’t propose to describe the animals 
for you; but I want you to think for a moment 
how wonderful it is that elephants and tigers and 
lions from Asia and Africa, seals and white bears 
from the Arctic regions, antelopes from the Cape 
of Good Hope, and monkeys and parrots from 
South America should meet together in Boston 
and let a Boston boy make their acquaintance. 

If Roger had wanted to see an elephant, he 
would have had to go to Africa or Asia for the 
purpose. 

Ezekiel had seen bears and wolves and foxes 
caught or killed in the woods, but to him a lion 
was as strange and fabulous a thing as a dragon. 

It seemed as if Frank had but to sit still and 
wait, and all the world’s wonders would be 
brought for him to see. 

He has more books than he can read; more 
pleasures than he can enjoy. I don’t believe a 
twenty-mile ride on his bicycle, or a trip on his 
ice boat at the rate of thirty miles an hour, gives 


243 


The Story of Frank Wilson 

him any greater delight than Gilbert felt when' 
he went hawking by the river, or Wulf and Ella 
when they ran races in the woods. 

I will end my book with a fable, and you may 
apply its meaning as you please. 

Once there was a wise king who ruled over a 
great country. He had a son whom he loved 
very much, and wished to help in every way, 
but he said, “If I help him too much, he will 
never learn to help himself. I have treasures 
enough to make him rich, and pleasures enough 
to make him happy, but he will have to learn 
that, in order to enjoy riches and pleasures, he 
must first earn them/’ 

So he hid the treasures in places difficult to 
be reached, and put all sorts of obstacles in the 
roads, and then he sent the young prince out 
into the world to seek his fortune. 

Whenever he came to a great stone in the 
road, and lifted it out of the way, making the 
road not only easier for himself, but also better 
for all those that came after him, the strength 


244 The Road from Long Ago to Now 

by which that stone had resisted passed into 
the arms that had moved it; so he went on his 
way just so much stronger for every obstacle he 
had overcome. And for a long time this rough 
work with the hands was all he could do. But 
when at last the roads were so cleared that all 
men might easily journey over them, then other 
troubles appeared, obstacles that could not be 
lifted out of the way with strong arms, but must 
be thought out of the way by long and patient 
study. And when, at last, they were overcome, 
their strength also passed into the mind of him 
who had conquered them. 

And as the young prince went on, working 
his way with hands and with mind, he grew 
stronger and stronger, and happier and happier; 
and when he had reached all the riches and the 
pleasures, he said joyously: “I do not need any 
of them; in going to seek them, I have gained 
something better than them all.” 

It is not what a boy has , but what he is, that 
makes him valuable to the world, and the world 
valuable to him. 


VOCABULARY 


TEN BOYS 


PRONUNCIATION. —a, e, i, o, u, as in fate, mete, site, rope, tube; 5, 
6, l, 6, u, as in hat, met, bit, not, ait; a, e, I, 6, ii, as in far, her, fir, nor, 
cur; a, e, j, o, u, as in mental, travel, peril, idol, forum; ee, as in feet; 66, 
as in hoot; 60, as in bough; ou, as in croup. 


Accolade, Ak'-o'lad 

Acropolis, A-crop'-S-lis 

Afghanistan, Af-gan-is-tan' 

Agni, Ag'-m 

Ajax, A'-jax 

Alpha, Al'-fa 

Alpheus, Al-fe'-iis 

Amyas, Am'-yas 

Apollo, A-pol'-ld 

Aristodemus, Ar-is-to-de'-mus 

Aryan, Ar'-yan 

Aryas, Ar'-yas 

Aspa, As'-pa 

Athene, A-the'-ne 

Athenian, A-the'-ni-an 

Atrium, A'-trf-um 

Attalus, At'-a-lus 

Atticus, At ,J i-cus 

Augurs, Au-'gUrs 


Ave Maria, A'-ve Ma-re'-a, a 
prayer 

Aventine, Av'-en-tin 

Babylon, Bab'-i-lon 
Bacinet, Bas'-i-net 
Barbados, Bar-ba'-d 5 z 
Baryta, Bar'-e-ta 
Bellamie, Bel'-la-mi 
Beorn, Ba'-orn 
Bernard, Ber-nar' 

Beta, Ba'-ta 
Blouses, Blouz'-ez 
Bordeaux, Bor'-do' 

Boulogne, Boo-Ion' 

Bulla, Bool'-la 

Cadiz, Ka'-diz 
Cadmea, Kad-me'-a 


245 




246 The Road from Long Ago to Now 


Caesar, Se'-zar 
Caius, Ka'-yus 
Calpurnius, Kal-piir'm-us 
Capitoline, Kap'-i-to-lin 
Caracas, Ka-ra'-kas 
Cathay, Ka-tha' 

Cato, Ka'-to 

Cavendish, Kav'-en-dish 
Chalons, Sha-lon' 
Charicles, Kar'-i-cles 
Chiton, Kl'ton 
Chivalry, Shiv'-al-ri 
Chlamys, Kla'-mis 
Cleon, Kle'-on 
Clermont, Klar-mon' 
Cloudsley, Klouds'-li 
Clough, Kluf 
Colossus, K 5 -los'-sus 
Corinth, Kor'-lnth 
Cossus, Kos'-sus 
Cyrus, Sl'-rus 

Daldion, Dal'-di-on 
Darius, Da-ri'us 
Dasyus, Das'-yus 
Delphi, Del'-fi 
Delta, Del'-ta 
Deradetta, Der-a-det'-ta 
Devonshire, Dev'-on-sheer 
Diana, Dl-an'-a 
Diogenes, Di-oj'-e-nez 
Diskos, Dis'-kiis 
Doxius, Dox'-yus 
Drachma, Drak'-ma 


Earldorman, Erl'-dor-man 
Egeria, E-je'-ri-a 
Elis, E'-lis 
Elric, El'-rfk 
Erkennin, Er-ken'-nm 
Eudexion, U-dex'-i-on 
Euphrates, U-fra'-tez 
Eustace, Us'-tas 
Everhard, Ev'-er-ard 
Ezekiel, E-ze'-ki-el 

Falcon, Faw'kn 
Fenrir, Fen'-rer 
Fitz-Hamo, F!tz-Ha'-mo 
Flushinger, Flush'-mg-er 
Friga, Fri'-ga 

Galleon, Gal'-le-on 
Gamma, Gam'-ma 
Geoffrey, Jef'-fri 
Gerard, Zha-rar 7 
Giles, Jllz 
Glaucon, Glau'-con 
Golan, Go'-lan 
Goshawk, Gos'-hawk 
Grendel, Gren'-del 

Hengist, Heng'-gist 
Heron, Herron 
Hertha, Her'-ta 
Hestia, Hes'-ti-a 
Hindu, Hm'-doo 
Horatia, Ho-ra'-sha 
Horatius, Ho-ra'-shus 



Vocabulary 


247 


Horsa, Hor'-sa 
Hymettus, Hi-met'-tus 

Ides, Idz 
Indus, In'-dus 

Io triomphe, E'-o tre-oom'-fe 
Iran, E-ran' 

Janus, Ja'-nus 
Janiculum, Ja-mk'-u-lum 
Javelin, Jav'-e-lin 
Jehovah, Je-h5'-va 
Jennet, Jen'-net 
Juno, Joo'-n5 
Jupiter, Joo'-pT-ter 

Kablu, Kab'-loo 
Kalanta, Ka-lan'-ta 
Kalends, Kal'-endz 
Kush, K6osh 

Lares, La'-rez 
Leigh, Le 
Levant, Le-vant' 

Lictor, Lik'-tor 
Lima, Le'-ma 

Lincolnshire, Ling'-kun-sheer 
Lupercus, Lii-per'-kus 
Lysias, Lis'-I-as 

Maius, Ma'-yus 
Manila, Ma-ml'-a 
Marius, Ma'-ri-iis 
Martius, Mar'-shiis 


Medes, Medz 

Mediterranean, Med-i-ter-ra'- 
ne-an 

Menagerie, Me-nazh'-er-i 
Minerva, Mi-ner'-va 
Montain, Mon'-tin 
Morglay, Mor'-glay 

Nema, Na'-ma 
Niding, Ni'-dmg 
Nones, Nonz 

Olympia, O-lim'-pi-a 
Olympiad, O-lim'-pi-ad 
Ormuzd, Or'-muzd 

Paean, Pe'-an 
Palatine, Pal'-a-tln 
Palmata, Pal-ma'-ta 
Papyrus, Pa-pP-rus 
Pater Noster, Pa'-ter Nos'-ter 
Paynim, Pa'-nim 
Pedagogue, Ped'-a-gog 
Penates, Pe-na'-tez 
Phidias, Fid'-i-as 
Philemon, FMe'-mon 
Picta, Pic'-ta 
Pierre, Pi-er / 

Pilchards, Pil'-chards 
Pistareen, Pis-ta-ren' 

Plebeian, Ple-be'-an 
Polycles, PSl'-i-clez 
Pormont, Por'-mont 
Portcullis, Port-kul'-lls 




248 The Road from Long Ago to Now 


Publius, Pub'-li-us 
Pyrrhic, Pxr'-ik 

Quintain, Kwm'-tm 
Quintilis, Kwin-tf-l!s 

Ranulf, Ra'-nulf 
Rio de Janeiro, Re'-5 da Zha- 
na'-r5 

Saracens, Sar'-a-sens 
Saturnalia, Sat'-iir-na'-li-a 
Scheldt, Skelt 
Scipio, Sip'-!-5 
Seater, Sat'-er 
Seax, Sax 

Sebastian, Se-bas'-chan 
Sesterce, Ses'-ters 
Sextilis, Seks-ti'-lls 
Sibylline, Sib'-Hin 
Sicily, Sis'-Hi 
Sigebert, Sig'-e-bert 
Solon, S5'-lon 
Straetas, Stre'-tas 
Stylus, Sti'-lus 
Suez, Soo-ez' 

Suger, Su-zha' 

Thanet, Than'-et 


Thebes, Thebz 
Theognis, The-og'-ms 
Thorsby, Thors'-bi 
Thratta, Thrat'-ta 
Tiber, Ti'-ber 
Toga, To'-ga 
Trireme, Tri'-rem 
Tyr, Ter 
Tyre, Tir 

Uffen, Oof'-fen 

Valerius, Va-le'-ri-us 
Venison, Ven'-zn 
Vesta, Ves'-ta 
Via Sacra, Ve'-a Sa'-cra 
Vortigern, Vor'-ti-gern 

Witenagemot, Wit'-e-na-ge- 
mot' 

Wodensday, W5'-dns-da 
Wulf, Woolf 

Yeo, Y6 

Zadok, Za-'dok 
Zendavesta, Zend-a-ves'-ta 
Zeus, Zoos 

Zimmerman, Zim'-er-man 




















































































































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